BANCROFT

LIBRARY
♦

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

From the collection of the

z ^ m

oPreTinger

V JJibrary
p

San Francisco, California
2007

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/collegemarketcoOOdallrich

Caroune Wells Healet

From a pencil drawiriK by Alvan Clark about 1836.

THE COLLEGE, THE MARKET,
AND THE COURT;

OR,

WOMAN'S RELATION TO
EDUCATION, LABOR, AND LAW.

BY

CAROLINE H. DALL, LL. D.

▲UTHOB or "historical bkbtchm." "sckbhink," "the life or

DR. ZAKRZKWBKA." ETC.

"Let this be copied out,
And keep it safe for our remembrance.
Return the precedent to these lords again." — King John

'How eaust thou make me thy friend who in nothing am like thee?
Thy life and dwelling are under the waters; but my way of living
Is to eat all that man doesl"— Batrachomtomachia.

BOSTON

MEMORIAL EDITION

1914

I =1 >^

MKMORIAL BDITIOK.

THE RCMrORD PR]
CONCORD, N. H.

PREFATORY NOTE OF THE EXECUTOR.

Mrs. Caroline Wells Healey Dall died at her home
in Washington, D. C, December seventeenth, 1912,
in the ninetieth year of her age.

Part of the twentieth paragraph of her last will
and testament reads as follows:

"I . . . will that 'The College, Market and Court,'—
for which I received from Alfred University, New York, the first
(LL.D.) d^ree given in modem times to a woman, — ^be re-
printed . . . with the address given to the Alumni in con-
ferring it."

Mrs. Dall justly regarded this work as summariz-
ing the data and arguments for the emancipation of
women from the restrictions which, in her youth,
hampered them in their rights to labor and to learn.
This was the message which during her active life-
time she delivered to the world. Social obstacles,
hardly conceivable today, lay continually in her path.
With a few other chosen souls she "bore the burden
and heat of the day." A pioneer, she met with the
fate not unusual with pioneers.

Others who followed the trail hewn with so much
difficulty, when it had become a fashionable prome-
nade, are better known today; but the impartial his-
torian of the future will restore their due meed of
honor to the pioneers.

IV PREFATORY NOTE OF THE EXECUTOR.

Mrs. Dall had left a copy of this book arranged
with the addenda she wished included in the present
hmited memorial edition, which, in accordance with
her directions, is an exact reprint of the copy thus
prepared. To Mr. W. S. Rossiter of the Rumford
Press, who is responsible for the care and accuracy
of the reproduction, are due the thanks of the reader
and of the executor.

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

By James Redpath.
[Publiflhed about 1866]

Mrs. Dall is now recognized both in England and
America as one of the ablest and most judicious de-
finers and defenders of woman's rights that the sex
has hitherto contributed to the upbuilding and the
vindication of its own cause. I say definers and de-
fenders, for an inability to define what woman's
rights are has been of even greater injury to this re-
markable movement than the course of its injudicious
defenders. That, with all the want of discrimination
and want of discretion exhibited on the part of its
champions, this cause should still have made such
striking progress, is one of the most notable signs
of the age we live in. It shows, as a thousand other
events have shown, that our self-styled leaders are
only exponents of thoughts familiar to the minds of
multitudes, which are neither changed nor silenced
by the inconsistency and unwisdom of conspicuous
advocates.

Mrs. Dall was the daughter of Mr. Mark Healey, a
well-known India merchant of Boston. She was
born and educated in this city, and had every advan-
tage that wealth could give in acquiring knowledge

[v]

VI CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

and skill in the use of it. She learned the several
modern languages, and the "outlines" of many others
and, at the age of thirteen, began to write for the
newspapers. She always wrote on moral or religious
subjects. Since that time, without interruption, she
has continued to contribute to the press; and she has
probably discussed a greater variety of topics and
covered a wider range of subjects, than any other
American woman. From reviewing cook books to
analyzing Bunson's Egyptology; from inditing stories
for the youngest children to exchanging views on
social science with eminent publicists, — this tireless
student has fulfilled every duty that can devolve
on a professional writer for the press.

Her first book was published in 1849. It was a
series of moral and religious essays, which she had
used in the course of Sunday school instruction. It
was written at the age of sixteen, but published much
later. This little book is chiefly remarkable today
as containing a disclaimer of woman's rights. As
the highest moral point of view that most men reach
in their lives is no more than the ground from which
earnest students start in their early youth, it is quite
possible that the ideas which Mrs. Dall threw away
twenty years ago may furnish excellent food for old
children today. So, as food for babes, I quote from
an essay on "Reform":

"There is no modem reform that we take so little interest in
as the movement in regard to the rights of women. It is true

CAROLINE HE ALE Y DALL. Vll

that there have been moments in our life when we would have
given worlds to have sat for an instant on the bench, to have
throiMi one vote in the national assembly, to have spoken one
hour at a caucus, or have held a governor's commission just long
enough to freely resign it. But while the hot torrent of our
blood asked for this, we never for a moment supposed that the
court room, the council hall or the caucus was a proper place
for us. We only felt that if the men of our country had dwindled
into caitiffs, it had the more need of her women. The business
of our country and our age, it has be^i most truly said, is to
organize the rights of man. One of the holiest of his rights is
to find woman in her proper place. It is he who is robbed by a
wrong condition of things. We doubt ver>' much whether Prov-
idence ever intended that woman should personally share the
duties of the commonwealth. We feel that this is utterly in-
compatible with the more precious and positive duties of the
nurser\' and the fireside. But we long for the time to come when
a finished education shall be everywoman's birthright; when the
respect of the other sex shall be her legitimate inheritance; when
the woman of any rank will be able to obtain a liveUhood for her-
self or her children without overtasking the generosity of man;
when she shall no longer find herself, even for a moment, a tool
or a playlhing. We would willingly listen to her voice in the
religious assonbly, for we have seen the soul of a 'sister friend'
more exquisitely and visibly illuminated by the Divine Spirit than
that of any preacher to whom we have ever listened; and we are
not surprised that in the present state of the world a woman's
soul should frequently be found the fittest receptacle for the love
and righteousness of Christ."

This little book, however, is reformatory in every
direction excepting toward the ballot-box.

In her girlhood Miss Healey was noted for her
interest in the poor, and was constantly found in
their houses in the most wretched quarters of the
city. Her fidelity and fearlessness in exploring the
abodes of poverty and sin in search of her scholars

Viii CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

and self-adopted wards is rarely equalled or imitated
by the youth of either sex, and indeed would be unsafe
for any to emulate except those who are born to be
missionaries.

In 1844 she was married to Rev. Charles Dall, then
a Unitarian minister at Baltimore. This union
tended to develop what, in consideration of her an-
cestry, may well be regarded as her innate tendencies
— a special aptitude for Biblical and Oriental scholar-
ships. For Mrs. Dall had descended through an al-
most unbroken line of clergymen for fully three cen-
turies, and numbers among her ancestors on both
sides William Whittingham, the translator of th(-
Geneva Bible, who, by his marriage with Katherine
Calvin, was the brother-in-law of John Calvin. Whit-
tingham was Dean of Durham, and was noted for
his zeal in destroying church images and monuments
in the reign of Mar>'. After living some years in
Baltimore and elsewhere, Mr. and Mrs. Dall removed
to Toronto, Canada. The only surviving son is
WllHam H. Dall of the Smithsonian Institution,
who is now (1866) at the head of an exploring expe-
dition in the Arctic regions.

When in Baltimore and in Washington, in 1842,
Mrs. Dall first became practically familiar with slav-
ery, and manifested her interest in it b}^ teaching the
negroes to read — thereby making herself amenable
to the laws of both State and District. She also
made the first census of free colored people in the
district, in order to organize schools for them. Dur-

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. IX

ing her residence of some years in the South she took
a constant interest in the slaves, and contributed to
northern papers descriptions of slavery as it was. She
began her annual contributions to the ** Liberty Bell"
in 1850.

When in Toronto, Mrs. Dall was corresponding
editor of the "Una," a woman's paper published at
Providence, Rhode Island. She furnished literary
articles chiefly, and occasionally papers on the
"woman question." At Toronto, also, she was the
agent of a society for assisting fugitives from slavery,
and she records that in a single year, of four hundred
negroes who passed through her office, not one re-
turned to ask a second time for help.

In 1855 she assisted to call a convention in Boston,
to discuss the subject of woman's rights, and brought
in a report on the laws relating to women, as they
stood on the statute books of Massachusetts, and the
other New England States. This was her first pub-
lic contribution to the cause in which she has since
become so conspicuous. Her earliest sympathies
had been aroused when a girl l)y finding, on consult-
ing John W. Brown, an eminent lawyer in his day,
in behalf of a poor woman, that, although she sup-
ported with her own earnings her family of seven chil-
dren, yet she could not be protected from the robbery
of her drunken husband when he insisted on seizing
the money laid aside for her rent to buy liquor,
^liss Bremer as late as 1850 felt grieved that Mrs.
Dall took so little interest in the matter of sufifrage.

X CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

•She came gradually to see its importance as a means
And its necessity as a recognition. S'he believes no
party will ever care to burden itself with reforma-
tory questions until a sense of necessity drives it to
consider tliem. Women voters alone, who acutely
feel the wrongs done to their sex, will ever compel
reluctant legislators to redress them.

In 1855 Mr. Dall went as a missionary to Calcutta.
Since that time, even more largely than before, Mrs.
Dall has been a voluminous contributor to newspapers
Slid magazines both at home and abroad. Over
one field of reform she has made herself a sleepless
sentinel, — that is, over all that concerns the interests,
duties, and rights of woman; and for years she has
suffered no author or journal of any eminence to slur,
misrepresent, oY dwarf the cause without sending a
word-bullet whizzing in that direction. Of course
such fidelity has aroused a host of antagonists; for
it is a peculiarity of human nature not to like to be
shot at, and Mrs. Dall has a wonderful talent for
hitting what she aims at. She has probably disturbed
more self-complacent conservation — or the half-inso-
lence and half-laziness which assumes that title —
than any other woman now living.

After this time Mrs. Dall called a number of con-
ventions in different years to follow up the first
meeting and discuss worhan's rights. She had the
entire management and responsibility of these meet-
ings. Her own first series of lectures were sketches
of female character, which were received with general

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XI

satisfaction. They have not been published. In
the following winter she delivered a second series on
Woman's Right to Education; in the winter of 1861
she gave a third series on Woman's Right to Labor;
and in 1862 she concluded her course by three lectures
on Woman's Rights under the Law. These lectures
were many times repeated and soon afterwards were
published as little books, and they have since reap-
peared, revised and enlarged, in the volume recently
published by Lee & Shepard, entitled: "The College,
the Market and the Court; or, Woman's Relation to
Education, Labor and Law." These lectures were
thoroughly successful, and established the position of
the author in the foremost rank of the advocates of
these questions.

During these years, and ever since, Mrs. Dall has
lectured in New England and the West on Woman's
Rights, Biblical Criticism, Egyptology, and other
topics, and has often filled the pulpits of Unitarian
churches in different sections of the North. She
takes the whole service herself, and is regarded as
one of our ablest and most erudite Biblical critics.
There is certainly no other American woman who
publishes an>i;hing by which her learning can be
gauged, who knows so much about philology, archae-
ology. Oriental history and languages, and the results
of modem Biblical criticism. It is believed that she
was provoked into lecturing on these topics by hear-
ing some of our prominent clergymen give utterance
to the most crude exploded expositions of Oriental

xii CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

history. On these subjects she has contributed
largely to quarterly reviews and religious magazines
both in England and the United States.

Her other works are a '' Life of Marie E. Zakrzew-
ska, M.D."; ''Historical Pictures Retouched" (vindi-
cations, for the most part, of eminent women — as
Aspasia and Sappho among the ancients, and Mary
Wollstonecraft among the modems); "Sunshine: a
new name for a popular lecture on Health"; and
"Egypt's Place in History: a presentation" — that
is to say, of Bunsen's great book with the same title.
This last production is a pamphlet in which the re-
sults of Bunsen's herculean labors are stated with a
conciseness and power which came from a constant
study of the bulky original work for more than two
years.

In addition to her work as a writer and lecturer,
Mrs. Dall has taken an active part for many years
in Sunday schools. She was the first to move in the
formation of the Social Science Association, and has
had several classes of adults in philolog>% biblical
criticism, Shakespeare and Herodotus. She is also a
diligent worker in various methods of organized char-
ity; and at home, as her multitudinous writings show,
she is a tireless and conscientious student.*

* There should be some record of the Association for Social Science, of
Annual Legal Reports, of Anti-Slavery work, and my many Parker Conven-
tions at one of which the death of Parker was announced. Also that it was
due to myself and Jno. A. Andrew that the Social Science Association was
started. — C. H. Dall.

From u photuRrnph taken about 1872.

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XIU

From "A Manual of American Literature."

Mrs. Caroline He^ey Dall, has written numerous
books and pamphlets on subjects connected with
social and political reform, and particularly on the
subject of woman's rights. Her productions have
been marked by point and vigor, and show various
reading and scholarship, as well as cultivated taste.
She has not sought publicity, yet has not shrunk from
it when loyalty to truth and duty has seemed to her
to call for public action, whether through the press
or on the platform.

Mrs. Dall is the wife of a Unitarian minister. Rev.
Charles Dall, and daughter of Mr. Mark Healey, an
India merchant of Boston. She was bom and edu-
cated in that city, and at present resides there, al-
though she has lived at different times in Baltimore,
Washington, and Toronto. The following is a list
of her publications: Essays and Sketches; Woman's
Right to Labor; Life of Dr. Marie Zakrzewska;
Historical Pictures Retouched, a correction of errors
involving much labor; Old Testament Lectures;
Sunshine, a lecture; The College, The Market and
The Court; Egypt, a presentation of Bunsen; A Re-
port on the Laws of Massachusetts; A Report on a
Horticultural School for Reformed Women; Several
annual reports on women's education, labor, and civil
position; Essays on Confucius, on Biblical Criticism,
etc.; Patty Gray's Journey, 3 vols.

The book first named was written at the age of

XIV CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

sixteen, though not published until seven years
later, in 1849. It consisted of a series of moral and
religious essays, written originally for her own use
in her Sunday school class.

Mrs. Dall has the reputation of being a tireless and
conscientious student. In addition to her work as a
writer and a lecturer, she has taken an active part in
Sunday schools and in various schemes of organized
charity, and has had several classes of adults in philol-
ogy. Biblical criticism, Herodotus, and Shakespeare.
—By John S. Hart, LL.D., Philadelphia, 1873.

From "Moulton's Women of the Century.*'

Dall, Mrs. Caroline Healey, author, bom in Bos-
ton, Mass., 22nd June, 1822. She was a daughter of
the late Mark Healey. She was educated thoroughly
by governesses, and at a private finishing school ; after
reverses of fortune in 1841 she became a teacher.
In 1842 she entered Miss English's school for young
ladies, in Georgetown, D. C, as vice principal. In
1844 she became the wife of Rev. Charles Henry
Appleton Dall. She kept up her studies and literary
work uninterruptedly. Her earlier literary produc-
tions were principally on reform subjects and the open-
ing of new spheres of occupation to women. Her
later productions have been purely literary and criti-
cal. In 1877, being the first woman in modem times

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XV

to receive it, she received the degree of LL.D. from
the Alfred University, Alfred, N. Y. Much of her
activity has been in the cause of woman's rights.
Her books are numerous and important. They in-
clude ''Essays and Sketches" (1849); "Historical
Pictures Retouched" (1859); "Woman's Right to
Labor" (1860); "Life of Dr. Marie Zakrzewska"
(1860); "Woman's Rights under the Law" (1861);.
"Sunshine" (1864); "The College, the Market and
the Court" (1867); "Egj-pt's Place in History"
(1868) ; " Patty Gray's Journey to the Cotton Islands,"
3 Vols. (1869 and 1870); "Romance of the Associa-
tion" (1875); "My First Holiday" (1881); "What we
really know about Shakespeare" (1885), and "The
Public Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee" (1888), all
published in Boston. Mrs. Dall's works have found
a wide sale and attracted the attention of critics every-
where. She was the original mover for the Social
Science Association with Governor Emerj' Washburn
and Dr. Samuel Eliot as helpers, and has read many
papers before that body. She was in 1854 associated
with Paulina Wright Davis in the management of
"Una," the woman's rights journal, in Boston. Her
lectures were scholarly and profound. Her husband
was a Unitarian clerg>'man, and died 18th July, 1886,
in Calcutta, British India, where he had been for-
thirty-one years a missionary.

xvi caroline healey dall.

From ^' Songs and Singers of the Liberal Faith,"
A. P. Putnam, 1875.

Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, wife of Rev. Charles H. A.
Dall, was Caroline Wells Healey, daughter of Mark
and Caroline (Foster) Healey. She was bom in
Green Street, Boston, in which city her father was a
prominent India merchant. Inheriting the blood of
many of the old Massachusetts Bay families, of
Winthrop, Dudley, Rogers, Bradstreet, and Symonds,
she traces her lineage back through an almost un-
])roken line of clerg>'men for fully three centuries,
and numbers among her ancestors, on lK)th sides,
William Whittingham. the translator of the Geneva
Bible, and Katherine Jacqueman, his wife, heiress
of Turvyle and Gouteron, whose only sister was
Idolette de Bure, the wife of John Calvin. She
early learned the modem languages and began to
write for the nows])apers when only thirteen years of
age. Her first ])ook, consisting of moral and religious
essays which she had used in the course of Sunday
school instruction, was published in 1849, and was
written when she was but sixteen. She was married
to Mr. Dall while he was minister at Baltimore, where
with him she became much interested in the slaves,
made a first census of the free colored people of the
District of Colum])ia where she resided for a year
before her marriage, taught the negroes how to read,
and contributed articles on the general subject to the
Northern journals. She began her annual contribu-
tions to the ''Liberty Bell" in 185n; at Toronto, was

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XVll

corresponding editor of the "Una," a woman's paper,
published at Providence, R. I., and was the agent of
a society for assisting fugitives from slavery; in 1855
aided in calling many Conventions in Boston to dis-
cuss the Rights of Woman, and brought in reports on
the laws relating thereto of the several New England
States; and afterwards, during successive winters,
gave series of lectures upon topics connected with
the new reform, that were first given to the press in
various small books, and that were still later collected,
revised, and enlarged, and issued by Lee & Shepard
in a single volume, under the title, **The College, the
Market, and the Court; or, Woman's Relation to
Education, Labor, and Law." Her other works are
a "Life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D."; "Historical
Pictures Retouched"; "Sunshine: A New Name for
a Popular Lecture on Health"; and "Egypt's Place
in Histor>'." The last is a pamphlet in which the
authoress gives a concise statement of the results of
Bunsen's herculean labors as they are presented in
his great work bearing the same title.

In addition to these philanthropic lal>ors and liter-
ary productions, are to be mentioned her continued
interest and service in Sunday schools, her life-long
devotion to the poor and suffering children in Boston,
her instruction of classes of adults in philology,
biblical criticism, Shakespeare, and Herodotus, her
agenCy in the formation of the Social Science Associ-
ation, her frequent preaching in Unitarian pulpits,
and her numerous lectures and periodical contri-

XVlll CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

butions other than those which have been referred
to. Her writings attest her superior intellectual
ability and her ample range of learning, while she
is a recognized leader in organized charities, and in
various other enterprises or movements that seek
the general welfare. She still continues her work of
usefulness in the city in which she was bom, and
in which. she has resided since her husband went to
India.

Like so many others of whom we have given some
account in this volume, and who are known chiefly
as prose writers, Mrs. Dall has given us some good
verses.

From "The Alfred Student."

November, 1877.
(Written by President A. A. Allen.)*

It may be unusual to trace the pattern of a life
before the web is finished, for not till then is its plan
revealed, or its true meaning accomplished. Yet an

♦This paper was written at the time my degree of LL.D. was given me by
Alfred to make me better known to the Alumni. I never saw or heard of it.
Mrs. Allen found it when collecting materials after her husband's death and
thought it strange that I had never spoken of it. She sent the original for me
to examine. I replied by a letter, asking where they got the material for the
paper, as facts were exact whatever might be thought of the opinion. The letter
appended is a copy of her response. Prest. Allen's estimate entirely omits
my Social Science Work. It also omits my Canada work, my five or six
conventions, and annual Reports on laws of New England for many years. It
does not cover the whole ground of my education.

C. H. DALL.

October, 1893.

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XIX

intense admiration for one who may be termed the
advocate of woman everywhere and in all stations in
life, is my apology, if one is needed. The life of Caro-
line Healey Dall — lived thus far to such a noble
purpose — can but draw us to a brief study of its aims,
and allure to aspirations to become co-workers with
one so eminent in achievements for the cause of
truth.

Mrs. Dall is the daughter of Mark Healey, a well-
known India merchant of Boston. She was bom
and educated in that city, enjoying every facility
that wealth could afford in acquiring knowledge and
skill in using it. She learned several modem lan-
guages, and the "outlines" of many others — and when
she was thirteen began to write for the press, which
she has continued to do ever since. Her first book
was written at the age of eighteen, and published
seven years after, in 1849.

In her girlhood. Miss Healey was noted for her
interest in the poor, and she frequented their dwell-
ings in the most wretched quarters of the city. Her
fidelity and fearlessness in exploring the abodes of
poverty and sin, in search of her scholars and self-
adopted wards, is rarely equaled or imitated by the
youth of either sex, and, indeed, would be unsafe for
any to emulate save those who are born to be mis-
sionaries.

In 1844, she was married to the Rev. Charles Dall,
a Unitarian minister at Baltimore. This union
tended to develop what, in consideration of her an-

XX CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

cestry, may well be regarded as her innate tendency —
a special aptitude for Biblical and Oriental scholar-
ship, for Mrs. Dall had descended for full three cen-
turies through an almost unbroken line of clergymen,
and has said that she knew ver>' well where her natural
sphere of work lay, and could she have had a theo-
logical education in her youth, or if the paths of the
ministry had been open to women, she would now
have been a settled minister; as it was, it never en-
tered her mind that the thing was possible. However,
in the first year of her marriage, her husband, while
employed in missionary labor in the city, was taken ill,
at which time he was holding day-schools for girls
and women, and night-schools for boys and men.
It fell to her lot not only to nurse him, but to take
charge of his night-school, and also his Sunday serv-
ices. He did not find a small congregation when
he resumed his place, and that was her reward.
Since that time, she has often filled the ])ulpits of
Unitarian churches in different sections of the North
and West. She conducts the entire services, accept-
ing no assistance in reading or prayer, feeling that
it is not well for a woman who fills the pulpit to per-
mit them to be broken by alien influences.

When in Baltimore and Washington, Mrs. Dall
first became practically familiar with slavery, and
manifested her interest in the degradation of the race
by teaching the negroes to read. She made the first
census of free colored people in the District of Colum-
bia, in order to organize schools for them, and con-

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XXI

tributed to northern papers descriptions of slavery
as it was. She began her annual contributions to
the "Liberty Bell" in 1852. When in Toronto, she
was corresponding editor of the "Una," a woman's
paper published at Providence, R. I.; she was also
agent of a society for assisting fugitives from slavery;
and she records: "Of four hundred negroes who
passed through her office in a year, not one returned
to ask assistance."

In 1855, her husband went as a missionary to Cal-
cutta. Since then, even more largely than before,
she has been a voluminous contributor to newspapers,
and magazines, both at home and abroad. Over one
field of reform she has made herself a sleepless senti-
nel— ^that is, over all that concerns the interests,
duties, and rights of woman. For years she has
suffered no author or journal of any eminence to
slur, misrepresent, or dwarf the cause, without send-
ing a word-bullet whizzing in that direction. Of
course such fidelity has aroused a host of antagonists,
for it is a peculiarity of human nature not to like to
be shot at, and Mrs. Dall has a wonderful talent for
hitting that at which she aims. She has probably
disturbed more self-complacent conservatism, or the
half-insolence and half-laziness which assumes that
title, than any other woman now living. Her first
series of lectures were sketches of female character,
but were not published.

In 1858, she delivered a second series on Woman's'
Right to Education; in the winter of 1861, she gave

XXll CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

a third series on Woman's Right to Labor; and in
1862, she concluded her course by three lectures on
Woman's Rights under the Law. These lectures were
often repeated, and afterward published in little
books, and have since reappeared, revised and en-
larged, in the volume entitled, ''The College, the
Market, and the Court, or Woman's Relation to Edu-
cation, Labor, and Law."

Her other writings are very numerous, but we will
mention only "Patty Gray's Journey," an interesting
and instructive work for children, to which she has
given much attention, consisting of three volumes.
It was to have been published in six but owing to
difficulties with her publishers the last three have
never been printed. "Eg>'pt's Place in Histor>'," a
presentation, that is to say, of Bunsen's great book
with the same title, followed — a pamphlet in which
the results of Bunsen's herculean labors are stated
with a conciseness and power which came from a
constant study for more than two years of the bulky
original. She has probably discussed a greater vari-
ety of topics and covered a wider range of subjects
than any other American woman; and there is cer-
tainly no other by whom her learning can be gauged,
who knows so much of philology, archaeology-. Ori-
ental history and languages, and the results of modem
Biblical criticism.

Mrs. Dall truly holds the pen of a ready writer.
Her depth of culture and versatility of talent make
her perfect mistress of the English language. She

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. XXlll

never uses a word that will not strengthen or clear the
thought expressed; and what she utters is from the
need of its being said, whether in the interests of
learned research, or the instruction and entertainment
of the young; in matters relating to the practical
economies of life, or in furtherance of the great cause
to which she has especially devoted herself. She thus
impresses her hearers or readers with respect, both
for her subject and herself. She realizes the suf-
ferings of humanity, and also the high possibili-
ties of happiness within its reach; hence, her earnest
sympathy has been freely given in words and works
to help every form of human woe. To one asking
counsel, when in agony of doubt as to duty, she writes:
"Go forward, take the first step, and God will show
you the next." Mrs. Dall has been untiring in elabo-
rating every subject to which her attention has been
given, spending months in working up statistics, and
when they were complete, using them to the best ad-
vantage. What would have been, in the hands of
common historians, dry, prosaic facts, became, by
her masterly touch, the bold outlines of a grand
panorama, in which human beings move and hearts
palpitate. The most stupid and careless cannot read
her pages without becoming thoughtful, and the
thoughtful are spontaneously moved to action.

Today her position is in the front ranks of those
who labor for the elevation of woman, where she stands
with a serene confidence in the onward march and
final triumph of grand ideas she has so long and un-

XXIV CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

falteringly held up to the public. Her work on
Woman's Rights has been so exhaustive in logic and
facts that it has been a golden fountain from which
most of the later writers and lecturers have drawn,
often without so much as "By your leave, Madam."
Her labor has been very influential in opening the
doors of colleges to woman; but still she says, ''It is
true that the mere means of education is open to some
extent for woman, but education itself is not won for
her till it brings her precisely the same blessings that
it bears to the feet of man; till it gives her honor,
respect, and bread; till position becomes the rightful
inheritance of capacity, and social influence follows
a knowledge of mathematics and the languages."
Mrs. Dall is endowed by nature with an exquisite sense
of order and fitness that pervades her entire being
and governs all her acts, thus making her life the
richest, grandest volume of all that she has presented
to the world. Tliousands working in avenues opened
by her earnest efforts will rise up to call her blessed.

A PART OF A LETTER WRITTEN TO MRS. DALL AT THE
TIME OF DR. ALLEN'S DEATH.

President Allen took a deep interest in every ques-
tion for the uplifting of woman; but when he heard
constantly your thought and very words used, and
statistics given as original that had cost you so much
time and unremitting toil, his sense of justice was

CAROLINE HE ALE Y DALL. XX\r

outraged. They were stealing your timber for the
building of their temples.

He was greatly surprised when I told him that you
had not been consulted about the forming of our
"Woman's Congress" in Seventy-three.

You know that your advanced thought was in har-
mony with his; and then your versatility of interests
in all departments of human history, and on so many
lines of work, called forth his great admiration. Not
half the LL.D.'s were as deep students of Law (in its
highest sense) as you.

It is very hard to think that you may not be in
Alfred again, hut hjirder to think that I must remain.

THE COLLEGE, THE MARKET, AND
THE COURT.

TO
LUCRETIA MOTT,

FOR MORE THAN FIFTY TEARS A PREACHER AND REFORMER; SPOT-
LESS AUKE IN ALL PUBUC AND PRIVATE RELATIONS;
WHOSE children's GRANDCHILDREN RISE
UP TO CALL HER BLESSED;

ZhiH Itoofc a Bebicateb.

SINCE SHE IS THE BEST EXAMPLE THAT I KNOW OF WHAT ALL
WOMEN MAT AND SHOULD BECOME.

"A

Leadioc with sober pace an armed man.
AU boaaed in gold, and thuB the superscription:
'I, Justice, bring this injured exile back
To claim his portion in his father's hall.' "

Seven aqainst Thebes.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

TN offering to the public a second edition of "The
* College, the Market, and the Court," the author
desires cordially to thank her critics for much valuable
help. It is sent out with an Index, prepared by
Charles A. Cutter, of Harvard College, in response to
the suggestions of the leaders of the press. Errors of
the proof have been corrected, and questionable state-
ments carefully substantiated, to avoid any occasion
for quibbling. It has been pleasant to see that the
English papers have done justice to the Memoir of
Mary WoUstonecraft. In several instances, I have re-
stored quotation-marks which had been dropped in fre-
quent transcribings. The Index restores to Mr. T. W.
Higginson the credit which belongs to him for about
half a page of matter, which could not be credited in
the text without heavy expense. I wish that some of
my critics would read my book to the end, before they
decide upon its merits. In that case, they would see
that I do not absolutely despise the laws of political
economy.

I am told, that the Rev. Dr. Todd, in commenting
upon this subject in public and private, persists in as-

[xxxi]

XXXll PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

serting that woman has no creative nor inventive
power; in short, that no woman ever took out a pat-
ent. I don't care whether she has such power or not:
all I ask is, that whatever power she has she shall be
permitted to use. Meanwhile, the question of the pat-
ent is not a question to argue, but a fact to prove or
disprove. I have assisted many women to procure
patents; but D. B. Sanders, at 96, Summer Street, Bos-
ton, is Madame Foye's agent for six patents, applied
to corsets for women's wear. Madame Foye is an
American woman, of genius and intelligence. In
three years, her patent has brought her twenty-five
thousand dollars; and it brings that annualh' to her
agent. Mr. Sanders hires about two hundred girls,
half of whom are employed on account of the j)atent.
Philadelphia and Chicago pay the largest tax to this
patent. One Chicago house ordered, for one fall trade,
seven hundred and thirty-five dozen. It employs
many women as selling agents; and Madame Foye
is constantly receiving letters from those to whom it
gives a creditable support. Beyond these facts, I know
nothing of the value of the patent; but I know some-
thing of the value of the woman. In telling me how
much more largely her agent profited by the sales
than herself, Madame Foye commented on the cus-
toms of trade, and added: ''But I do not care for
that. Mr. Sanders does not cut down the wages of
his girls, and no one employed on my patent shall.
If I do not have the larger part of the money, I have
the comfort of knowing how many women I have

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XXXIU

helped, and how many owe their independence to its
sale."

Will any one pretend, that this woman does not
need, or would not know how, to vote?

The recent action of Apothecaries' Hall draws our
attention to the fact, that, in the matter of educating
men and women to take degrees of medicine, together,
the essential point has not yet been gained. As soon
as Dr. Zakrzewska was graduated from Cleveland, that
institution effectually closed its gates against all sub-
sequent applicants. As soon as Miss Garrett had
taken her degree from Apothecaries' Hall, that institu-
tion passed a by-law, refusing to examine any stu-
dent who had received only private instruction; thus
effectually limiting the broader provisions of its char-
ter. This interest calls for wise and prudent persist-
ency; and it seems to me that much might be gained
if applications, properly sustained, were made to our
leading Universities, for examinations like those
granted at Oxford. For every half-educated woman
now practising in our cities, our accepted medical
schools are responsible.

An extract from the ** London Athenaeum," in the

note to page 225, speaks of Madame Heidenreich as

nie Von Siebold. The error escaped me in the first

edition, and I now draw attention to it in the Index.

The lady in question was only adopted into the

family of Von Siebold, and was n^ Heiland.

Caroline H. Dall.
70, Warren Avenue, Boston,

Nov. 15, 1867.

3

A PREFACE
TO BE READ AFTER THE BOOK.

^lyl7HEN, some years ago, I delivered nine lectures
" ^ upon the Condition of Woman, I had no
intention of printing them until time had matured
my judgments and justified my conclusions. Pecu-
liar circumstances afterwards induced me to modify
this decision. The first course of lectures, now
printed as "The College," had proved unexpectedly
popular, and was many times repeated. At its close,
I announced the second course upon Labor, involving
the subject of Prostitution as the result of Low
Wages; and a very unexpected opposition ensued.
My files can still show the large number of letters I
received, beseeching me not to touch this subject; and
private intercession followed, on the part of those I
hold wisest and most dear, to the same effect. Why
I did not yield to all the clamor, I cannot tell, —
except that I was not working for myself nor of
myself.

I thought it, however, necessary to take unusual
precautions to prevent these lectures from being mis-
understood. I wrote private notes, enclosing tickets,

[xxxv]

XXXVl PREFACE.

to almost all the leading clergymen, asking that they
would attend them as a personal favor to myself. I
believe I did not allude to the efforts which had been
made to silence me, except when I wrote to those
who had joined in the outcry. In that case, I de-
manded the attendance as an act of justice. These
notes were kindly responded to; and grateful tears
started to my eyes, when I found on the seats before
me white-haired men, who set aside their j^rejudices
for my sake. Whatever might have been thought
before, the delivery of the lectures silenced all ol)jec-
tions. They were fully attended and frequently re-
peated; and I followed the delivery })y the printing
of this particular course, in order that misunderstand-
ings should not have time to establish themselves.
The book was well received, both at home and abroad.
Letters came to me from the far shores of India and
Africa, thanking me for its publication. The first
edition was sold at once; and I should have reprinted
the book, but that I did not wish to re-issue these lec-
tures in an isolated fonn. I wanted them reprinted,
if at all, in their proper place, subordinated to my
main thought.

I smile a little as I look back. The remonstrances
upon my file, dated less than ten years ago, would
now be earnestly repudiated by the dear friends who
wrote them.

After the delivery of the third course, upon Law,
local reasons decided the publication of that book.
Many efforts 'were made in the different States

PREFACE. XXXVn

to change laws; and it was thought that the lectures
would give necessary information.

Of the first course, nothing has ever been printed
in this country. The second lecture was printed, by
a sympathizing friend in England, as a tract, and
widely circulated. Part of it was reprinted with
approbation in the "Englishwoman's Journal." The
whole of this course is now given to American read-
ers in its proper connection, in which it is hoped, that
its bearing upon the later lectures will be seen, and a
new significance given to its suggestions. The his-
tory of these volumes seems to make it necessary to
reprint the original Prefaces in connection with the
lectures on Labor and Law.

In 1856, I conceived the thought of twelve lec-
tures, to be written concerning Woman; to embrace,
in four series of three each, all that I felt moved to
say in relation to her interests. No one knew better
than myself that they would be only " twelve baskets
of fragments gathered up;" but I could not distrust
the Divine Love which still feeds the multitudes, who
wander in the desert, with "five loaves and two small
fishes."

In the first three of these lectures, I stated woman's
claim to a civil position, and asked that power should
be given her, under a professedly republican govern-
ment, to protect herself. In them I thus stated the
argument on which I should proceed: "The right to
education — that is, the right to the education or

XXXVlll PREFACE.

drawing-out of all the faculties God has given —
i7ivolves the right to a choice of vocation; that is,
the right to a choice of the end to which those
faculties shall be trained. The choice of vocation
necessarily involves the protection of that vocation,
— the right to decide how far legislative action shall
control it; in one word, the right to the elective fran-
chise."

Proceeding upon this formula, I delivered, in 1858,
a course of lectures stating ''Woman's Claim to
Education;" and this season I have condensed my
thoughts upon the freedom of vocations into the three
following lectures. There are still to be completed
three lectures on ''Woman's Civil Disabilities." I
should prefer to unite the twelve lectures in a single
publication; but reasons of imperative force have in-
duced me to hurry the printing of these "Essays on
Labor." Neither Education nor Civil Disability can
dispute the public interest with this subject. No one
can know better than myself upon what wide infor-
mation, what thorough mental discipline, all consider-
ations in regard to it should be based. I have tried to
keep my work within the compass of my ability, and,
without seeking rigid exactness of detail, to apply
common sense and right reason to problems which
beset every woman's path. At the very threshold of
my work, I confronted a painful task. Before I could
press the necessity of exertion, before I could plead
that labor might be honored in the public eye, I felt
that I must show some cause for the terrible earnest-

PREFACE. XXXIX

ness with which I was moved; and I could only-
do it by facing boldly the question of ''Death or Dis-
honor?"

"Why not leave it to be understood?" some per-
sons may object. "Why not leave such work to
man?" the public may continue.

In answer to the first question, I would say, that
ver>' few women have much knowledge of this "per-
ishing class," except those actually engaged in minis-
tering to its despair; and that the information I have
given is drawn from wholly reliable sources, as the
reader may see, but can be obtained only by hours —
nay, days and weeks — of painful and exhausting
study. Very gladly have I saved my audience that
necessity: greatly have I abbreviated whatever I have
quoted. But I meant to drive home the reality of
that wretchedness: I wanted the women to whom
I spoke to feel for those "in bonds as bound with
them;" and to understand, that to save their own
children, male and female, they must be willing to
save the children of others. It will be observed, that
I have said very little in regard to this class in the
city of Boston; very little, also, that was definite in
regard to our slop-shops. The deficiency is inten-
tional. I would not have one woman feel that I had
betrayed her confidence, nor one employer that I
had singled him out as a victim; and it is almost
impossible to speak on such subjects without finding
the application made to one's hand. I may say, in
general, that a very wide local experience sustains

Xl PREFACE.

the arguments which I have based on published sta-
tistics.

It was also my earnest desire to prepare one arti-
cle on this subject that might be put into the hands
of both sexes; that might be opened to the young,
and read in the family circle, without thrilling the
reader, with any emotion less sacred than religious
pity. This cannot be true of the reports of any
Moral Reform Society; for in them it is needful to
print details so gross in character as to be fit reading
for none but well-principled persons of mature age.
It is not true of such a work as Dr. Sanger's: for his
historical retrospect furnishes every possible excuse
to the vices of youth, and is open to question on every
page.

From the highest sources in this community —
from the lips of distinguished clergymen, scholars,
and men of the world — I have had every private
assurance, that, in this respect, I have not failed.

It would be unjust not to state, that two powerful
causes co-operate, in the city of Boston, with low
wages, to cause the ruin of women; I mean the love
of dress, and a morbid disgust at labor.

The love of dress was a motive which obviously
had no natural relation to my subject. A disinclina-
tion to work, my readers may think, it was proper I
should have treated; but it is the natural reflection
of a state of things, in the upper classes, which would
be a much fitter subject of rebuke.

So long as a lady will allow her guest to stand

PREFACE. Xli

exposed to snow and rain, rather than turn the han-
dle of the door which she happens to be passing; so
long as neither bread nor water can be passed at
table, except at the omnipresent waiter's convenience,
— servants will naturally think that there is some-
thing degrading and repulsive in work. This reform
must begin in the higher classes.

But, if this subject must be treated at all, why
should it not be left to men? Can women deal with
it abstractedly and fairly? The answer is simple. In
physics, no scientific observations are reliable, so
long as they proceed from one quarter alone; many
observers must report, and their observations must
be compared, before we can have a trustworthy re-
sult. So it is in social science. Men have been
dealing with this great evil, unassisted, for thousands
of years. By their own confession, it is as unap-
proachable and obstinate as ever. Conquered by its
perpetual re-appearance, they have come to treat it
as an "institution" to be "managed;" not an evil
to be abolished, or a blasphemy to be hushed. But
these lectures are not written for atheists. The
speculative sceptic has retreated before the broad
sunlight of modem civilization: only two classes of
atheists remain, — men of science, who fancy that
they have lost sight of the Creator in his works, and
talk of the human soul as the most noble result of
material forces; and people of fashion, who live
"without God in the world." Why man should
ever investigate the material universe without a

xlii PREFACE.

tender and reverent, nay, a growing dependence on
*'the dear heart of God," we will not pause to in-
quire. The child does not let go his father's hand
when he first comprehends the abundance of his
resources. Neither the fountains of God's beauty,
nor the perplexities of his nicely ordered law, loosen
man's loving grasp. He clings all the closer in his
joy, because he knows Him better. But why should
not the denizens of the fashionable world be atheists?
When I go among them, and listen to their heartless
fooleries; when I see them absorbed by the ' vain
nothings of their coterie, rapt in endless consultations
about times and seasons, devoid of any real enjoy-
ment, hopeless of noble occupations, with the days all
empty and the nights all dark, — then I, too, shiver
with doubt, and am ready to say in my heart, "There
is no God." We can never believe in any spiritual
reality of which our own souls do not receive some
faint reflex. These people must do the will of the
Father, before they can believe in his love. I do not
write for them, but for thoughtful men and women,
who rejoice in God's presence, deny the permanence
of evil institutions, and are anxious to share, with
others the inheritance that belongs to the "child of
the kingdom," — for those who have faith to remove
mountains, and courage to confess the faith. For
them I shall not have spoken too plainly.

Shortly after these essays were written, — in June,
1859, — I received from London Mrs. Jameson's
"Letter to Lord John Russell;" and I cannot refrain

PREFACE. Xliii

from expressing the deep emotion with which I read
what she had written to him upon the same subject.
Well may she wear the silver hairs of her sixty years
like a crown, if, only through their sanction, she may
speak such noble words. But —

"Earnest purposes do age us fast;"

and many a true-hearted woman, far younger in
years, would gladly bear witness with her.

I would not write, if I could, an "exhaustive"
treatise. All I ask for my work is, that it should be
"suggestive." With that purpose, I have worked
out my schemes, in the last lecture, far enough to
provoke objection, to stimulate the spirit of adven-
ture, to show how easily the "work" may wait upon
the "^411." May the "Opening of the Gates" be
near at hand !

It remains only to acknowledge my indebtedness to
some English and American friends: and first to the
"Englishwoman's Journal;" not merely for its own
excellent articles, but for references and suggestions,
most valuable when followed out. The story of the
young straw-braider was drawn from its pages; and,
disappointed in the arrival of original material from
Paris, long expected, I have been compelled to depend
upon it largely for my sketch of F^licie de Fauveau.
To one of its editors. Miss B. R. Parkes, and to
Madame Bodichon in London, as well as to the Rev.
Mr. Higginson, I am under pleasant private obliga-
tions. I must rest content to seem largely indebted

Xliv PREFACE.

to the "Edinburgh Review," of April, 1859, for con-
densing the results of the census. My materials were
collected and arranged, when the article on ''Female
Industry" reached me; and the differences in treat-
ment were so few, that I at once drew my pen
through whatever was not sanctioned by its author-
ity. The ladies who first directed my attention to
the Waltham watch-factory, and to the inventors of
artificial marble in France, will see from these few
words that I am not forgetful.

Boston, November, 1859.

There seems, at first sight, a certain presumption in
offering to an American public, at this moment, any
book which does not treat of the great interests which
convulse and perplex the United States. But expe-
rience has shown, that neither the individual nor the
national mind can remain continually upon the rack;
and both author and publisher have thought that a
book upon a serious subject, popular in form and
low in price, would find perhaps a more hearty wel-
come, under present circumstances, than in those pros-
perous days, when romances and poems, travels and
biographies, were scattered over every table bj' the
score.

''Woman's Right to Labor" owed its warm wel-
come, not to any power or skill in its author, but to
the impatient interest of philanthropists in every
thing relating to that subject. It remains to be seen,
whether as large a portion of the public and the press

PREFACE. Xlv

are prepared to treat with candid consideration the
subject of Law.

Both these volumes have been given to the world
in their detached form, that they might receive the
benefit of general criticism; that errors, inaccuracies,
or misapprehensions, might be perceived and rectified
before they took a permanent position as part of a
larger work. All criticism, therefore, which is honestly
intended, will be received with patience and gratitude;
but a great deal falls to the lot of the author which
cannot come under this head.

If we are told that a " wider acquaintance with the
history" of a certain era will modify our views, it is
natural to expect that an honest critic will show where
the acquaintance fails, and how the views should be
modified. When we are told that certain scientific
illustrations, "though true in the main, are not accu-
rate in detail," we may reasonably hope to see at
least one error pointed out. When neither of these
things is done, we sweep such remarks aside, as alike
unprofitable to us and our readers.

A wide and generous sympathy in my aims has
given me, thus far, all I could desire of encour-
agement and appreciation; and this appreciation
has come, in several instances, from a "household of
faith" far removed from my own, and has been
mingled. in such cases with an outspoken regret, that
one who "wrote so well, and felt so warmly," should
not acknowledge on her pages the debt woman owes
to Christianity, and unfurl an evangelical banner

Xlvi PREFACE.

above a C'hrist-like work. Because such friends
have spoken tenderly, I answer them respectfully;
because I never saw any church-door so narrow
that I could not pass through it, nor so wide that it
would open to all God's glory, I answer them without
fear.

And. first, I believe in God, as the tender Father
of all; as one who cares for the least of his children,
and does not turn from the greatest; as one whose
eye marks the smallest inequalities of happiness or
condition, and holds them in a memory which does
not fail. I believe in Christ as his authorized
Teacher, anointed to reveal the fulness of God's love
through his own life of practical good-will. I do not
expect him to be superseded or set aside; and I do
expect, that in proportion as men grow wiser, humbler.,
and sweeter, their eyes will open only the more widely
to the great miracle of his spotless life, to the heav-
enly nature of his so simple teachings. And. next, I
believe in my own work, — the elevation of woman
through education, which is development; through
labor, which is salvation; through legal rights, which
are only freedom to develop and save, — as part of
the mission of Jesus on the earth, authorized by him,
inspired of God, and sure of fulfilment as any portion
of his law. If at any time I have lost sight of this
in expression, it is because I have thought it impos-
sible that the purpose and character of my work
should be mistaken. I am a slow and patient worker,
— patient, because one may well be patient, if God

PREFACE. xlvii

can; and therefore no disappointment, no lack of
appreciation, could sour or disturb me.

If I have justified the publication of this essay at
the present moment, it may be thought that I shall not
be able to justify the principal presumption; namely
that of a woman who undertakes to write upon law.

Such a treatise as this would be valueless, in my
eyes, if it were written by a man. It is a woman's
judgment in matters that concern women that the
world demands, before any radical change can be
made. To understand the laws under which I must
live, no recondite learning, no broad scholarship, no
professional study, can be fitly required. Common
intelligence and common sense are all that society
has any right to claim of me. Because most women
shrink from criticising this law, I have criticised it.

Ver>' recently, the ** London Quarterly" said, in
speaking of the republication of John Austin's work,
that "English jurisprudence would be indebted for
one of its highest aids to the reverential affection of a
wife, and the patient industry of a refined and
intellignent woman;" and Mrs. Austin defends her
undertaking on this very ground, — that, if she had
not superintended the work, no one else would. If
John Austin's firm and penetrating intellect could not
hold a score of persons about his lecturer's desk, and
if it found its fit appreciation only in the grave, a
conscientious woman need not shrink from any
branch of his great subject, only because her audi-
ence will be small.

xlviii PREFACE.

In one of his lectures upon Art, John Ruskin
says : —

"Every leaf we have seen, connects its work with the entire
and accumulated result of the work of its predecessors. Dying,
it leaves its own small but well-labored thread: adding, if imper-
ceptibly, yet essentially, to the strength, from root to crest, of
the trunk on which it has lived, and fitting that trunk for better
service to the next year's foliage."

Let these words, printed on ni}- titlepage, show
the modesty of my aim, and the conscientious stead-
fastness of my purpose. As the leaf is to the tree, so
is the individual to society. Tear away a single leaf
from the towering crest, and the trunk does not seem
to sufifer: nevertheless, one small thread withers, one
channel dries up, one source of beauty and use fails,
and. from that moment, a certain sidewise tendency
marks the growth.

To compact carefully one *' well-labored thread," is
all that I have sought to do, — to write a little book,
that women might be won to read, as conscientiously
as if it were a heavy tome, to be endlessly consulted
by the bench.

In writing these three lectures, I feel quite sure that
I must have made use of man}' significant expressions
l)orrowed from those who have broken the way for
me. For many years an extemporaneous lecturer on
this and kindred topics, I have so wrought certain
modes of expression into the fabric of my thought,
that I do not know where to put my quotation-marks.

PREFACE. xlix

To Mrs. Hugo Reid, for instance, I know I must be
under great obligations; and I can only hope, that
she will tnist me with her thoughts and words as
generously as I desire to trust all my readers with
mine. It is little matter who does the work, so that
it be done; but I owe to one author, in particular,
something like an explanation.

A few days before the third of these lectures was
delivered in Boston (that is, before Jan. 23, 1861),
a gentleman from Paris brought me from Madame
d'H^ricourt, a book called "La Femme Affranchie,"
an answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, and
Comte, which its author kindly desired I should trans-
late for the American market. Unable to comply
with her request, some weeks elapsed before I opened
the book. I was struck with the energy, self-pos-
session, and rapidity with which she seized the various
points of the subject, with the thoroughness of her
assault, and the temper of her argument. I did not
sympathize in all her methods or conclusions; but I
was interested to observe, that, in what I had then
written and publicly spoken of the relations between
suffrage and humanity, I had, in several instances,
used her very words, or she had used mine. I did
not alter my manuscript; but, with better times, we
may hope for a translation of her spirited volumes, and
the public will then do justice to her precedence.

I have been anxious to have p>ositive proof of my
conjecture in regard to the authorship of the " Lawe's
Resolution of the Rights of Women;" but persever-

4

1 PREFACE.

ing endeavors in England, in several directions, have
only left the matter as it stands in the text. It would
be very interesting to know something of the private
history of the man who wrote that book.

In the first of the follomng lectures, I have ven-
tured a rhetorical allusion to the blue-laws of Con-
necticut Since it went to press, I have seen it stated,
on high authority, that any American writer who
should " profess to believe in the existence of the blue-
laws of New Haven would simply proclaim himself
a dunce;" and the "Saturday Review" has been
handled without gloves for taking this existence for
granted.

I never supposed that the term "blue" applied to
the color of the paper on which such laws were
printed, any more than I supposed "blue Presby-
terianism" referred to the color of the presbv-ters'
gowns. I supposed it was the outgrowth of a popu-
lar sarcasm, descriptive, not of a "veritable code,"
^nor of a "practical code unpublished," but of such
portions of the general code as were repugnant to
common sense, and the genial nature of man. This
I still think will be found to be the case; and it is
certainly to Connecticut divines and Connecticut
newspa])ers that we owe the popular impression.

It was in the forty-sixth year of the independence
of the United States that S. Andrus &. Co., of Hart-
ford, published a volume purporting to be a compen-
dium of early judicial proceedings in Connecticut,
and especially of that portion of the proceedings of

PREFACE. ll

the Colony of New Haven commonly called the
"blue-laws." Charles A. IngersoU, Esq., testified to
the correctness of these copies of the ancient record.

As I quote this title wholly from memory, I am
unable to say whether the colony ever fined a bishop
for kissing his own wife on Sunday; but I have read
more than once of such fines; and, if no laws remain
unrepealed on the Connecticut statute-book quite as
absurd in their spirit and general tendency, there are
many on those of Massachusetts and New Hampshire:
so I shall let my rhetorical flourish stand.

To my English friends, to Mr. Hemdon of Illinois,
Mr. Higginson, and Samuel F. Haven, Esq., of Wor-
cester, I owe my usual acknowledgments for books
lent, and service proffered, with a generosity and
graceful readiness cheering to remember.

Nor will I omit, in what may be a last opportunity,
to bear faithful testimony to the assistance rendered,
in all my studies of this sort, by my friend, Mr. John
Patton, of Montreal. No single person has helped
me so much, so wisely, or so well.

In order to secure technical accuracy, my manu-
script and proofs have been subjected to the revision of
my friend, the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall. The principal
alteration which Mr. Sewall has made, has been the
substitution of the word "suffrage" for that of "fran-
chise;" which latter I used in the Continental fashion.
I prefer it to "suffrage," because it seems to have a
broader signification j but I yield it to his sugges-
tion.

lii PREFACE.

I would gladly have dedicated this volume to the
memory of the late John W. Browne, whose pure
purpose and eminent gifts made me rejoice, while he
was living, to call him friend. As, however, he never
read the whole of the manuscript, I have given it a
dedication "to the friends of forsaken women," which
no one, who knew him well, will fail to perceive in-
cludes him.

Boston, Sept. 1, 1861.

Caroline H. Dall.

70, Warren Avenue,
Boston, January, 1867.

CONTENTS.

THE COLLEGE.

THE CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND THE
PTTBLIC OPINION.

Original Proposition. Objections to Republicanism. No Retro-
grade iSteps Possible. The Educational Rights of Women.
A Share of Opportunities the only Eflfectual Way. Both
Sexes need the Oversight of Women. Men need the Needle.
Sydney Smith to Lady Holland. The Education not Won till
its Privileges are attained. Kapnist and the Normal School.
Low Wages. An Illustration. The Social Position of the
Teacher. The Spirit of Caste. Increase of Salaries. Is it
Real or Nominal? WTiat is the Standard of Education?
Niebuhr to Madame Hensler. Cousin and Madame de Sabl^.
Examples of To-day do not Cheer. Opinion of the Druses.
Charles Lamb on I^titia I^Andon. Coventry Patmore. Mrs.
Jameson on the English Deficiency. Standard of Italy.
500,000 Women in England. Dr. Gooch's Appeal. Oppo-
sition to first School of Design. Note on Miss Garrett. B. L.
Bodichon on Jessie Meriton White and Medical Colleges.
Need of a Medical Society. John Adams on his Wife. Why
has not the Standard advanced? Alice Holliday in Egypt.
Hekekyan EflFendi speaking for the Massachusetts Board of
Education. Madame Luce in Algiers. Her Workshop Dis-
continued. The Advance shown in such Lives. Mrs. Griffith.

lUul

liv CONTENTS.

Janet Taylor. Miss Martineau. "Aurora Leigh." Maria
Mitchell. Oread Institute. New York Schools. Vassar Col-
lege. Michigan University. Duty of Literary Men and
\N'omen to invigorate Public Opinion. What is Public Opin-
ion? Mary Patton pp. 1-48.

IL
HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE.

Existing Opinion. Proverbs. The Novel kept Faith with the
Classics. Social Customs. Newspai)ers. All form this Opin-
ion. Individual Influence must stem the Unittxl Current.
The Classics. Aristophanes. Iscomachus. Eiu-ipides. Col-
lege Slang. St. John. Margaret Fuller on her "Beloved
Greeks." Buckle. From Greece to Rome. Ovid. No Need
to end Cla-'^sical Study. Rather sanctify it. Perversions of
History in the Classical Spirit. Hy])atia. Aspasia. Society
in the Time of Ix)ui8 XIV. and Charles II. Lady Morgan on
Alfreti de Vigny. Rousseau. Dr. Day, Dr. Gregory, and
Dr. Fordyce. Margaret Fuller. Association of Ideas. Fanny
Wright. Captain Wallis and the Queen of Otaheite. Peru
and the Formosa Isles. African Customs. Mrs. Kirklimd
on the Strong Bo.x. Sir John Bowring on Marriage. Mrs.
Barbauld. The Newspapers. Impure Habits, pp. 49-82.

III.

THE MEANING OF THE LIVES THAT HAVE
MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION.

Mary Wollstonecraft and the Literature of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury. "Rights of Woman." "Not Empire, but Equality."
Dr. Channing on Mrs. WoUstonecraf t . Her Unhappy Home.
Fanny Blood. Breaks up her School. Saves the French
Crew. Provides for her Brothers and Sisters. Translations.
Answer to Burke. Fuseli. Paris. Imlay. Helen Maria Wil-

CONTENTS. Iv

liams. Happiness. Deserted in Eighteen Months. At-
tempted Suicide. Goes to Norway. Final Separation. Mar-
ries Godwin. Birth of Mrs. Shelley. Death of Mary. Her
Husband's Testimony. No Fair Statemen t recorded . Strength
of Prejudice against her. A Republican and a Unitarian.
The Judgment of her own Time upon her. The Right of Soci-
ety to pass Judgment. Mr. Day and Maria Edgeworth.
Lady Morgan. Always True to Freedom. Harriet Marti-
neau. Thorough Work. Mrs. Jameson. Her Bravery and
Truth. Woman's Rights Testimony. Mrs. Gaskell. Fred-
rika Bremer. The Brownings. "Aurora Leigh." Char-
lotte Bronte. "I Care for Myself." Our Abdiel. Margaret
Fuller as a Person. "Woman in the Nineteenth Century."
"Truth-teller and Tnith-compeller." Rebuke to Harriet
Martineau. Emerson's Misapprehension. Florence Nightin-
gale. Santa Paula. Mary Patton. Miss Muloch libels
Women. The Popular Idea of Love. Woman's Entire Self-
poesession. Carlylc and Count Zinzendorf. Wlio refuses
Strength must miss Beauty. The Best Brains make the Best
Housekeepers. The Affections of the Woman prompt and
dignify the Labors of the Scholar ... pp. 83-130.

THE MARKET.

DEATH OR DISHONOR.

The Attar of Cashmere. Moral Force must change the Results
of History. Statement of Subject. Death or Dishonor the
Practical Question. An Honorable Independence the Way
of Safety. The Forcing Pump and Siphon. Women must
Work for Pay. Success the Best Argument. Competition
in Rural Districts. DuchAtelet. Miss Craig. "Edinburgh
Review." Dressmakers and Sir James Clarke. Lace-makers.

Ivi CONTENTS.

Manchester Mantle-maker. 7,850 Ruined Women in New
York. Society Responsible for this Evil. Governesses. Mr.
Mayhew to the "Morning Chronicle." The Minister's Daugh-
ter. The Power of a Divine Love. Noble Natures among
the Fallen. The Cllasgow Case. 1,^80 Reformed French
Women. The Straw-braider. Have Women Strength to
Labor? Marie de Lamourous. The Young Laborer to be
Protected by Social InHuences. Women Hard Workers from
the Beginning. China. Hindostan, lk)mbay Ghauts. Aus-
tralia. Africa. Greece. Bertha of the Transjurane. Tyro-
lese Escort of Women. Germany. Montenegro. Holland.
France. Widow Brulow. Nelly Giles. Ignacia Riso. Fac-
tory Labor in France. Sale of Wives at Derby and Dudley.
Women in the Coal-mines. Pinmakers. Anna Gumcy. Hon-
duras. American Indians. Santn Cruz. Ohio and Pennsyl-
vania. New York. Women of Lawrence. Ship "Grotto."
Thomas Garratt concerning Sarah Ann Scofield. That all Men
supix)rt all Women, an Absunl Fiction pp. 131-177.

IL

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.

Want of Employment lowers the Whole Moral Tone. Vigorous
Women do not Ask what they shall Do. Idleness the Curse
of Heaven. Organized Opjxisition on Man's Part. Mr.
Bennett and the Watchmakers. Ribbon Looms at Coventry.
The School at Marlborough House. Miss Six'ncer. Painting
Crockery. Printing in America. Penn-sylvania Malical So-
ciety, 1S")9. ^^■ant of Res|)ort for Labor. Census of the
United Kingdom. Agriculture. Mining. Fishing. Servants,
Arc. Reporters. Bright Festival. Metal Workers. Gillett's
Pens. Jewelry. Screw-making. Button-nmking. Paper and
Card Making. Engravers. Printers, &c., &c. The Lower
Classes need the Brains of tlie Up]>er. T.>abor in the United
States. Nantucket. Pennsylvania. Dr. Franklin's Sister-
in-law. Mrs. Hillman. Mrs. Johnson. Martha B. Curtis.

CONTENTS. Ivii

Ann Bent. Scientific Pursuits not Open. Clerks under
Government. Census. VValtham Watch Factory. Dentists
School Committees. Post-mistresses. Olive Rose. Semi-pro-
fessions and Artists. Shoemaking in Ljim. Condition of the
Poor dependent on the Action of the Rich. Happy Homes
the Growth of Active Lives. The Pine and iEnemone. Emily
Plater. "Verify your Credentials." Encouragement from
Men; Faithfulness from Women. The Sorbonne. Madame
Sirault. That Career fated which Woman may not share.
Influence of the Sexes on each other. Baron Toermer and
F61icie de Fauveau pp. 178-220.

III.
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."

The Drowning of Daughters. Teachers of Elocution and the
Languages. Inspectors. Physicians. Dr. Heidenreich. Wood
Carving. Properzia dei Rossi. Swiss Work. Elizabetta
Sirani. Engravers. Barbers. Candied Fruit for Christmas.
Pickles. Fruit Sauces. Dishmops. Gymnastics. Female
Assistants in Jails, Prisons, Workhouses, not to be had
till Public Opinion honors Labor. Florence Nightingale an
Example. Parish Ministers. Deaconesses. Marian of the
Seven Dials. Reading Aloud to the Perishing Classes. St.
Pancras. Mrs Wightman. A Training School. A Public
Laundry and Bleaching Ground. Ready-made Clothing. An
Assistance to our Practical Charity. Knitting Factory. Orna-
mental Work to be Avoided. Occupation for the Young Ladies
at the West End. Mrs. Ellen Woodlock and her Industrial
Schools. She takes Eighty Paupers out of the Poorhouse.
Mr. Buckle's Position to be Questioned. Mistaken Moral
Effort a Harm to Society. Want of Connection between the
Employer and the Employed. People who want "a Chance
Lift." Defects in bur Present Intelligence-Offices. A Labor
Exchange. The Argument Restated. Will you tread out
the Nettles? The Drosera. Purposes the Blossoms of the
Human Heart pp. 221-261.

Iviii CONTENTS.

THE COURT.

I.

THE 0RIP:NTAL estimate and the FRENCH LAW.

Tlie Seat of tlie Law the Bosom of God? Of what Law? Legal
Restrictions constantly Outgrown. The Laws which relate to
Woman. Vishnu Sarma: the Hindoo Wife must use the Dialect
of the Slave. Ancient Chinese Writer. K6hl on Turkish Hus-
bands. Convent to lock up Ladies. The Ishmd of Ctelehes.
The CJarrows in the North-east of India. The Muhar. Mili-
tary Tribe of Nairs in Malabar. Later Proverbs; used by the
Satirists. The Four Points to Consider. Discussion of Mar-
riage and Divorce to be Deferred. The I'ublic Opinion which
has educateil Woman, and her Approximation to it. Woman
under Roman Law. Absence of well-testetl Contem|x>raneous
Evidence. Theodora. French Law. Bonaparte's Opinion.
The Estimate of a Double Character. Condition of the Peas-
ant-woman. Need of Ix>ve in the Upper Classes. Busines.s-
freedom. CJeorge Sand. Rosa Bonheur, and the Claimants
for Civil Rights. The Dotal founded on Roman Law: the
Communal founded on Cierman. Dotal Law rejectetl through-
out Europe. Protection means Subordination. As a "Public
Merchant," Woman becomes a French Citizen. Position
contradictory: not allowed to rule the Household, which is
called her Sphere. Civil Position. No Right of Promotion.
Laws of Ivouisiana. Estimate of Woman under the "Code
Napol6on:" tends to lower her Wages. List of Employments.
The Needle-women of Paris pp. 263-286.

II.
THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW.

It contains All to which we have any Need to Object.
Literature. "The Lawe's Resolution of Woman's Rights."

CONTENTS. lix

Inquiries as to its Author. Probability points to Sir John
Doderidge. The Law, for Single Women, of Inheritance.
Offices Open. Right to Vote, and Lady Packington. Sheriff
of Westmoreland. Lady Rous. Henry VIIL and Lady Anne
Berkeley. As Constable, and Overseer of the Poor. Female
Voter in Nova Scotia. Law relating to Seduct ion : its Profanity.
The French Law, as summed up by Legouv^^. Woman's Opin-
ion of this Law. Objections. Laws concerning Married
Women. Impossibility of Divorce, from Hopeless Insanity.
Instances where Men have taken the Law into their own Hands.
Impossibility of Woman's ever doing this. Marriage of a
Minor. A Wife loses all her Rights. Satire in a London Court .
Truth of this. Consequent Unwillingness of the Honest
Poor to Marry, and of Single Women of Rank to relinquish
Power. Freed women at the South. The Descendant of
Morgan the Buccaneer. Need of Equity. May make a Will
by Permission. Nutriment of Infants. The Law resists
Maternal Influence, and denies Natural Authority. Word not^
binding. Gifts Illegal. Indictments in the Husband's Name.
Divorces: only Throe ever granted to Women. The Widow
recovers her Clothes and Jewels, but need not bury her Hus-
band. Christian on Suffrage. Moderate Correction. Prop-
erty-laws. The Hon. Mrs. Norton. Hungarian Freedom.
Right to Vote. Experience in America. Parisian Milliner.
"Union is Robbery." The Heiress. Longevity of the Wife.
Woman discouraged from Labor by the Influence of the Laws
of Property. Sexual Legislation thoroughly Immoral. Man's
Adultery even a more Serious Evil than Woman's so far as State
Morals and Interests are concerned. Canton Glarus. " Courts
have never gone that Length." Debate on the New Divorce
Bill. Man's Fidelity considered an Imbecility. The Compli-
ments of the Law. The Husband's Vigilance. Duplicity the
Natural Result of Slavery. The Right of Suffrage. Objections
Answered. The Abstract Right and the Practical Question.
Suffrage to be limited by Education, not Money nor Sex.
The "Sad Sisterhood." Woman has never had a Representa-
tive. Her Suffrage would put an End to Three Classes of
Laws. Harris vs. Butler. Delicate Matters to be Discussed.

Ix CONTENTS.

Tho Duke of York's Trial. John Stuart Mill's Opinion. Dedi-
cation of his Essay on Liberty. Women of Upsal. On Juries.
Miss Shedden. Russell on Female Evidence. Fate of the
"Bulwarks of the English Constitution." Power of Women
not Disputed while it was dependent on Property. It should
dej>end on Humanity. Loui XIV. and the Fish-women.
Paulino Roland and Madame Moniot. Men borrow the Suf-
frages of Women. Saxon Wit as. Abbess Hilda. Council at
Benconceld. King Edgar's Charter. Abbesses in Parlia-
ment. Peeresses in Parliament. East-India Stockholders.
Stockholders in Hanks. Association for the Promotion of
Social Science. Mrs. Mill's Article. Flon'nce Nightingale's
Evidence. Petition to Parliament, and its Signers. The New
Divorce Hill. Ruckle's I^ecture. Canadian Changes. Incon-
sistencies. Canadian Women as Voters. Pit cairn's Island.

pp. 287-341.

III.

THE UNITED STATES LAW, AND SOME THOUGHTS
ON HUMAN RIGHTS.

Condifon of Women in Republics. Helvetia. Kent on the
Law's Estimate. "The Man's Notion." Property-laws, and
Natural Obligations of Husband and Wife. The Law's Indul-
gence. Marriage and Divorce in the Different States. \'ariety
of the Laws. "Cnielty." What have the Woman's-Rights
Party done? — changed the Law in nineteen States. The
Law of Illinois. Rhode Island on Property. Vennont. Con-
necticut. New Hampshire. Massachusetts, and what remains
to be done. Maine. Ohio. Judge Graham's Decision.
Mrs. Dorr's Claim. New York Property-bill of 1860, and its
Supplement. Relief to 5,000 Women. Mrs. Stanton before
the Legislature. The Right of Suffrage in New Jersey, Wis-
consin. Michigan. Ohio. Kansas. Connecticut, Ken-
tucky in R^'ference to Suffrage, A Woman's Right to Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Mrs. John Adams
and Hannah Corbin understood its Worthlessness. Richard

CONTENTS. Ixi

Henry Lee on a Woman's Security. "Woman's Rights," — a
Phrase we all Hate: identical with "Human Rights," — a Phrase
we all Honor. Reception of Woman in the Lyceum. Labor to
be honored through Woman. Trade to become a Fiyie Art.
Property-holders must have Pohtical Power. Mr. Phillips on
Suffrage. The Lowell Mill. Dr. Hunt's Protests. Mean
Men. Woman's Duty to the State a Moral Duty. Woman's
Right to Man as Counsellor and Friend. The Constitution of
the Family. The Historical Development of the Question.
Marj' Astell in the Seventeenth Century. Mary Wollstone-
craft in the Eighteenth, and the Customs of Australia. Re-
sponses to her Appeal. Margaret Fuller in the Nineteenth.
The great Lawsuit in 1844. Convention at Seneca Falls in
1848. National Association in 1850. Profane Inanity.
Chinese Women. Does Power belong to Humanity or to
Property? Mahomet, and the Right to Rule. Wendell Phil-
lips and the Venetian Catechism pp. 342-374

TEN YEARS.

Education. — Absence of Discussion Wise. American Associa-
tion for the Promotion of Social Science. Lectures from the
Lowell Institute. Ripley College. Howard University. Pro-
fessor Baldwin at Berea. St. Lawrence University, N. Y.
Lombard University, 111. Oberlin. List of Colleges it has
Organized. Lane Seminary. President Finney. Ladies' Li-
brary. Ladies' Hall. Miss Fanny Jackson. A Confession.
Antioch. Way thither. Yellow Springs. The Glen. Matins.
Necessities. Changes in Buildings, Books, &c. Missionary
Work. The Professors. The Brigadier-General. Literary
Societies. A Southern Refugee. Vassar College. Lawrence
University, Kansas. Letter from Miss Chapin. A Professor
Elected. Michigan University. Miss Nightingale's Training-
School for Nurses, Liverpool. Schools in Calcutta. Deacon-

JXII CONTENTS.

P8808. Kaisen^orth. Strasburg. Basle. St. Loup. Geneva
Faubourg St. Antoine. Passevant Hospital. Bishop Ker-
foot 's Schools pp. 377-429.

Medical Education. — New York Medical Society. Medical
Society in I>ondon. Hosspital of the Maternity in Paris. Miss
Garrett and Ajwthecaries' Hall. Dr. Zakrzewska and the
Medical Society. Medical I^ectures at Har^'ard. Women
and the Cossacks. Women and the Algerines. Women in
India. Cause of Cholera. Success of Female Physicians.
Dr. Ross. A Medical College Needed. New England Hos-
pital pp. 429-434.

Pulpit. — Am61ie von Braum. Mamsell Berg. Rev. Olympia
Brown. Mrs. Jenkins. Mrs. Booth. Mrs. Timmins. Ann
Rexford. Nancy Gove Cram. Abigail H. Roberts. Mrs.
H«'dge8. The Church at Amstenlam, and its Deaconesses.
Resolution at Syracuse. Delegates to I>ocal Conferences.
Mrs. Dull. Counsel to Women who desire to preach.

pp. 434-447.

Akt Schools. — Lowell Institute. Cooi)er Institute. Miss
Roundtree and Miss Curtis. Coloring Photographs. Mrs.
Elizabeth Murray and the London Society of Female Artists.

pp. 447-449.

Labor. — Statistics of Eight-hour Movement. Factory LalK)r in.
England. Foreign Society for Employment of Women.
Mending Schools. A Barber. Public Clerks. Fanny Paine.
Musical Careers. Charlotte Hill. Williston Button-factorj'.
Madam Clarke. A Capitalist. Mr. Thayer's Lodging-house
for Girls. Young Women's Christian Association. Lodging-
house in New York. Miss Hill's Ruskin Lodging-houses in
London. Female Printers. A Notar>' Public pp. 450-468.

Law. — Married Women in New York. Right of an Ordained
Woman to Marry in Msissachusetts. School Committees.
Richmond. Are a Woman's Clothes her own? State of Mis-
souri. College. Where shall a Woman's Children go to Church?
Francis Jackson's Will. Conference at Leipsic. Petition to
enable Widows, Potter's County, Pa. Women as Bank
Directors pp. 468-472.

CONTENTS. Ixiii

Suffrage . — Kansas. M issouri in. Congress . The Speaker of the
House. Mercantile Library in Philadelphia. Voting in New
Jersey. Mr. Parker at Perth Amboy. A Petition to Ken-
tucky. Equal-Rights Association, Petitions, &c. George
Thompson's Objections. John Stuart Mill and the Franchise.
English Petition a Model. To be sustained by Able Men.
Mrs. Bodichon's Pamphlets. Women Ejected. Austria.
Swedish Reform Bill. Italian Law. The Hungarian Diet.

pp. 472-486.

Civil Progress. — Australia. Moravia. Dublin. Aisne. Ber-
g^res. Need of a Newspaper pp. 486-488.

Obituaries, &c. — Merian. Baring. Famham. Lemonnier.
Dr. Barry. Mrs. Severn Newton. pp. 488-491.

The Ballot will secure All Things. A Ghmpse of the Wide West.
Vassar and Miss Lyman. Oberlin and Mrs. Dascomb. Dr.
Glass. Female Lecturers. Business Capacity of Women.
The Ice in Fox River, 111. Cholera at Elgin. Quincy High
School. Coloring Photographs at the Cooper Institute.
Conclusion pp. 491-499.

THE COLLEGE;

OR.

WOMAN'S RELATION TO EDUCATION.

IN THREE LECTURES.

I. — ^Ths Chbistian Demand and the Pubuc Opinion.
IL — ^How Public Opinion is made. *

III. — ^The Meaning or the Lives that have modified it

Now press the clarion on thy woman's lip,
(Love's holy kiss shall still keep consecrate,)
And breathe the fine, keen breath along the brass,
And blow all class-walls level as Jericho's
Past Jordan. . The world's old;

But the old world waits the hour to be renewed.

Aurora Leigh.

TiDo of far nobler shape, erect and tall, —
Godlike erect, with native honor clad
In naked majesty, — seemed lords of all
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone^ —
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure;
Whence true authority in men.

Milton.

THE COLLEGE.

THE CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND THE PUBLIC OPINION.

"Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with the choir of saint* for evermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come,
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before."

Macdonald.

nno propose an essay on education requires no
'*• little courage; for the term has covered, with its
broad mantle, every thing that is stupid, perverse,
and oppressive in literature. We will not tax our-
selves, however, to consider exact theories, or suggest
formal dissertations. In these lectures, let us take all
the liberties of conversation; pass, in brief review, a
wide range of subjects; comment lightly, not thor-
oughly, upon them; and trust to quick sympathies
and intelligent apprehension to follow out any really
useful suggestions that may be made.

Some time since, we laid down this proposition:
"A man's right to education — that is, to the educa-
tion or drawing-out of all the faculties God has given
him — involve the right to a choice of vocation;

(3J

4 THE COLLEGE.

that is, to a choice of the end to which those faculties
shall be trained. The choice of vocation involves the
right and the duty of protecting that vocation; that
is, the right of deciding how far it shall be taxed, in
how many ways legislative action shall be allowed to
control it; in one word, the right to the elective fran-
chise."

This statement we made in the broadest way;
applying it to the present condition of women, and
intending to show, that, the moment society conceded
the right to education, it conceded the whole question,
unless this logic could be disputed.

Men of high standing have been found to question
a position seemingly so impregnable, l)ut only on the
ground that republicanism is itself a failure, and that
it is quite time that Massachusetts should ins'st upon
a property qualification for voters.

In this State, so remarkable for its intelligence and
mechanical skill, — a State which has sent regiment
after regiment to the battle-field, armed by the college,
rather than the court, — in this State, one somewhat
eminent voice has been heard to whisper, that men
have not this right to education; that the lower classes
in this country are fatally injured by the advantages
ofifered them; that they would be happier, more con-
tented, and more useful, if left to take their chance,
or compelled to pay for the reading and writing which
their employers, in some kinds, might require.

We need not be sorry that these objections are so
stated. They are a fair sample of all the objections

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 5

that obtain against the legal emancipation of woman,
an emancipation which Christ himself intended and
prophesied, — speaking always of his kingdom as
one in which no distinctions of sex should either be
needed or recognized. Push any objector to the
wall, and he will be compelled to shift his attitude.
He says nothing more about women, but shields him-
self under the old autocratic pretension, that man,
collectively taken, has no right to life, liberty, or the
pursuit of happiness; that republicanism itself is a
failure.

Our hearts need not sink in view of this assertion,
apparently sustained by a civil war that fixes the sus-
picious eyes of autocratic Europe in sullen suspense.
A republic, whose foundations were laid in usurpa-
tion, could not expect to stand, till it had, with its own
right arm, struck off its "feet of clay." It is not free-
dom which fails, but slavery.

The course of the world is not retrograde. Massa-
chusetts will not call a convention to insist upon a
property qualification for voters, neither will she close
her schoolhouses, nor forswear her ancient faith. The
time shall yet come when she shall free herself from
reproach, and fulfil the prophetic promise of her re-
publicanism, by generous endowment for her women,
and the open recognition of their citizenship.

It is not our purpose, however, to dwell upon facili-
ties of school education. More conservative speakers
will plead, eloquently as we could wish, in that behalf;
and suggestions on other topics need to be made.

6 THE COLLEGE.

We have already said, that the educational rights
of women are simply those of all human beings, —
namely, "the right to be taught all common branches
of learning, a sufficient use of the needle, and any
higher branches, for which they shall evince either
taste or inclination; the right to have colleges, schools
of law, theology, and medicine open to them; the
right of access to all scientific and literary collections,
to anatomical preparations, historical records, and rare
manuscripts."

And we do not make this claim with any particular
theory as to woman's powers or possibilities. She
may be equal to man, or inferior to him. She may
fail in rhetoric, and succeed in mathematics. She
may be able to bear fewer hours of study. She may
insist on more protracted labor. What we claim is,
that no one knows, as yet, what women are, or what
they can do, — least of all, those who have been
wedded for years to that low standard of womanly
achievement, which classical study tends to sustain.
Because we do not know, because experiment is
necessary, we claim that all educational institutions
should be kept open for her; that she should be
encouraged to avail herself of these, according to her
own inclination; and that, so far as possible, she
should pursue her studies, and test her powers, in
company with* man. We do not wish her to follow
any dictation; not ours, nor another's. We ask for
her a freedom she has never yet had. There is,
between the sexes, a law of incessant, reciprocal

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 7

action, of which God avails himself in the constitu-
tion of the family, when he permits brothers and sis-
ters to nestle about one hearth-stone. Its ministra-
tion is essential to the best educational results. Our
own educational institutions should rest upon this
divine basis. In educating the sexes together under
fatherly and motherly supervision,* we avail our-
selves of the highest example; and the result will be
a simplicity, modesty, and purity of character, not so
easy to attain when general abstinence from each
other's society makes the occasions of re-union a
period of harmful excitement. Out of it would come
a quick perception of mutual proprieties, delicate
attention to manly and womanly habits, refinement
of feeling, grace of manner, and a thoroughly sym-
metrical development. If the objections which are
urged against this — the divine fashion of training
men and women to the duties of life — were well
founded, they would have been felt long ago in those
district schools, attended by both sexes, which are the

* This does not mean the supervision of father and mother, but that into
colleges, universities, medical schools, and whatever educational institutions
may be named, the controlling and protecting influence of both sexes should
be carried. I believe that every university should have a cultivated and ele-
gant woman (not neceMarily the wife of any of its officers), whose duty it
should be to preside over its social life, and offer such allurements to virtuous
pleasure that gambling-houses and worse shall lose their present fascinations .
If young men could associate with virtuous and lovely women, luder suitable
sanction, in their college life, they would not, in general, go out of it in search
of the vicious and unlovely. No one who lives within throe miles of a large
university need doubt the meaning of this paragraph. An ago and a reli-
gious faith which discards the cloister, should discard a cloisteral fashion,
wherever it exists.

8 THE COLLEGE.

pride of New England. The classes recently opened
by the Lowell Institute, under the control of the
Institute of Technolog>', are an effort in the right
direction, for which we cannot be too grateful. Here-
tofore, every attempt to give advanced instruction to
women has failed. Did a woman select the most
accomplished instructor of men, and pay him the
highest fee, she could not secure thorough tuition.
He taught her without conscience in the higher
branches; for he took it upon himself to assume that
she would never put them to practical use. He
treated her desire for such instruction as a caprice,
though she might have shown her appreciation by
the distinct bias of her life. We claim for women a
share of the opportunities offered to men, because we
believe that they will never be thoroughly taught
until they are taught at the same time and in the
same classes.

The most mischievous errors are perpetuated by
drawing masculine and feminine lines in theory at
the outset. The God-given impulse of sex, if left
in complete freedom, will establish, in time, certain
distinctions for itself; but these distinctions should
never be pressed on any individual soul. Whether
man or woman, each should be left free to choose
its own methods of development. We pause, there-
fore, to show, that, when we spoke of a certain use
of the needle as a matter to be taught to both
sexes, we did so by no inadvertence. The use of
the sewing machine is even now common to both;

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 9

but men, as well as women, should be taught to use
their fingers for common purposes skilfully. Per-
sonal contact with the pauperism of large cities has
sent this conviction home to many practical minds.

The rough tippets, mittens, and socks imported
into the British Colonies, are the work of the Welsh
fanners and the Shetland fishermen during the long
tempestuous winter nights. In writing to Lady
Holland, Sidney Smith pens some pleasant words on
this subject.

**I wish I could sew," he says. "I believe one
reason why women are so much more cheerful than
men is because they can work, and so vary their

employments. Lady used to teach her boys

carpet- work. All men ought to learn to sew."

All men! and so might the cares of many women
be lightened. Let us candidly confess our own
indebtedness to the needle. How many hours of
sorrow has it softened, how many bitter irritations
calmed, how many confused thoughts reduced to
order, how many life-plans sketched in purple!

Let us pass over that portion of our statement
which hints at vocation, and confine ourselves, for
the present, to that part of it which looks to an
unrestricted mental culture. Nowhere is this syste-
matically denied to women. It is quite common to
hear people say, "There is no need to press that sub-
ject. Education in New England is free to women.
In Bangor, Portsmouth, Newburyport, and Boston,
they are better Latin scholars than the men. Nothing

10 THE COLLEGE.

can set this stream back: turn and labor else-
where."

We have shown to how very small an extent this
statement is true. If it were true of the mere means
of education, education itself is not won for woman,
till it brings to her precisely the same blessings that
it bears to the feet of man; till it gives her honor,
respect, and bread; till position becomes the right-
ful inheritance of capacity, and social influence fol-
lows a knowledge of mathematics and the languages.
Our deficioncj' in the last stages of the culture offered
to our women made a strong impression on a late
Russian traveller.

'*Is that the best you can do?" said Mr. Kapnist,
when he came out of the Mason-street Nonnal
School for Girls. **It is very poor. In Russia, we
should do better. At Cambridge, you have eminent
men in every kind, — Agassiz, Gray, Peirce. Why
do they not lecture to these women? In Russia,
they would go everywhere, — speak to both sexes.
At a certain age, recitation is the very poorest way
of imparting knowledge."

To all adult minds, lectures convey instruction
more happilj' than recitation; and, when men and
women are taught together, the lecture system is
valuable, because it permits the mind to appro-
priate its own nutriment, and does not oppress the
faculties with uncongenial food.

To those who are familiar with the whole ques-
tion, no theme is more painful than that of the in-

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 11

adequate compensation and depressed position of
the female teacher. There is no need to harp on
this discordaiii string. Let us strike its key-note
in a single story.

A year ago, in one of the most beautiful towns
of this neighborhood, separated by a grassy common,
shaded with drooping elms, rose two ample build-
ings, dedicated to the same purpose. They were
the High Schools for the two sexes.

They were taught by two persons, admirably fitted
for their work. The man, uncommonly happy in
imparting instruction, was yet deficient in mathe-
matics, and considered by competent judges inferior
to the woman.

She was an orphan, with a young sister dependent
upon her for instruction and support. She had been
graduated with the highest honors at one of the
State Normal Schools. She was delicate and beau-
tiful; not in the least "strong-minded." Neither
spectacles upon her nose, nor wooden soles to her
boots, appealed to the popular indignation. All who
knew her loved her; and the man whom we have
named was not ashamed to receive instruction froni
her in geometry and algebra. The two schools
were equal in numbers. The man was a bach-
elor, subject to no claim beyond his own necessity.
What did common sense and right reason demand,
but that these two persons should be treated alike by
society, prudential committees, and so on? You shall
hear what was the fact. The man was engaged at

12 THE COLLEGE.

a salary of fifteen hundred dollars. The wealthiest
class in the community intrusted its sons to his
charge without question. »Single, he was much made
of in society, invited to parties, and had his own cor-
ner at many a tea-table, which he brightened with his
pleasant jokes. He soon came to be a person in
the town, — had his vote, was valued accordingly;
went to church, was put upon committees, had a
great deal to do with calling the new minister, and
so, out of school, had pleasant and varied occupa-
tion, which saved his soul from racking to death
over the ruts of the Latin grammar. Would we
have it otherwise? Was it not all right? Certainly
it was, and our friend deserved it ; deserved, too, that
when the second year was half over, and there were
rumors that a distant city had secured his services,
the committee should raise his salary two hundred
and fifty dollars, and so keep him for themselves.
But let us look at the reverse of the picture. The
woman, burdened with the care of a younger sister,
greatly this man's superior in mathematics and pos-
sibly in other things, was engaged at six hundred
dollars. It was not customary for the wealthy fami-
lies in that neighborhood to trust their girls to the
tender mercies of a public school; so she had a class
of pupils less elegant in manner, of more or-
dinary mental training, and every way more difficult
to control. Still they were disciplined, and learned
to love their teacher. A few of the parents called
upon her, and she was occasionally invited to their

CHRISTIAN DEMAIO) AND PUBLIC OPINION. 13

homes. But these homes were not congenial to her
tastes or habits. There was no intellectual stimu-
lus derived from them to brighten her life. They
offered neither pictures, statues, books, nor the re-
sults of travel, to her delicate and yearning appre-
ciation. She talked, for the most part, of her pupils
and their work; and the strain of her vocation, always
heavier on woman than on man, wore more and
more upon her soul. Society, as such, offered her
no welcome.*

^"Sodety offered her no welcome." I am very well aware that this state-
ment, taken with what I shall elsewhere indicate, will be conaiderod an exagKora-
tion; but, with a somewhat wide and varied experience of the United States
and of Canada, I maintain it to be true. I am not to say what is true in the
esres of others, but what is true in my own. "What!" some one will exclaim,
"education not a paseport to social honor! Where was there ever a country
where the teacher was respected as she is in New England?" Theoretically,
this is true: and I have known a few instances in New England, in which teachers
ci private achools, of good family, successful in acquiring wealth (not necessarily
through their schools), kept an eminent social position. Men generally keep
a fair poaition; women, rarely. To test the truth of this, let me press the
question. To whom do we all, to whom docs the Commonwealth, owe a sacred
debt, if not to the teachers of the primary and the grammar schools? Among
these women, I have found some of the most delicate, high-bred, and cultivated
women whom I have ever known of the same age. I^et any one who sees them
ooUected on public occasions glance at them, and judge; hut, in cities at least,
these women are never In society. Their meagre salaries prevent them from
dreeeing as ladies must be dressed for a large company. For the same reason,
their boarding-places are obscure and lonely. The middle class of artisans, &c.,
who send their children to the public schools, seek no intercourse with those
whoee refinement seems to isolate them; the upper class look down upon them
very kindly, but never think of inviting them to meet distinguished people, of
showing them rare books or pictures, of stimulating their worn-out faculticn
in any way. Why do we not make these teachers o\u- first care? Should we
not be more than repaid — if pay we must have — by the cheer and comfort
added to the schoolroom in which our children are to be taught? I have tried
the experiment of bringing these tired souls into contact with thoee who ought

14 THE COLLEGE.

She was nothing to the town. She hired her seat,
and went to church. She had no vote, was never on
a parish committee, had only one chance to change
her position. That was to remove to a more con-

to refresh them. It doe« njar\'elloualy well, until the crucial question is asked
' ' Who is she? " If I answer, ' ' The teacher of a primary school." what a change
of countenance, what a fading of the cordial smile, what {Mssive indifferencel
and this, in cas(>s where, in refinement and delicacy of manner, the young
lady might pass unchallenged anywhere. But let the subject of my experi-
ment be a girl of genius; with such cultivation only as a Normal School could
add to the education of a country home; deficient still in the minor graces of
deportment; loo energetic and adventurous, perhaps, to be elegant; and vho
will take a motherly interest in her, draw her within the charmed circle where
she shall learn to carrj' herself with reserve and dignity, and to veil her flashing
powers, that they may warm where they have hitherto consumed?

No: I do not exaggerate. I believe we are all concerned to know in what
sort of homes, under what influences, with what helps to health and happiness,
these lonely and isolated girls pass the hours when they are not engaged in
teaching. It concerns us, in the first place, of course, because theirs are the
direct influences which mould our children; but I scorn that argument. It
concerns us far more l»erause they are the children of the same Father, engaged
in the most trying of human vocations, and entitled as women, especially as
unprotected women, to the sympathy of all mothers.

Some years ago, a lady not yet out of her teens, and suddenly reduced in
fortune, went to Virginia to teach. She had letters from persons of distinc-
tion, who had known her in her early home. The letters were delivered; but
there the matter ended. But she was one of those persons who make a place
for themselves; and, after the neighborhood grew proud of her, she was called
down one day to meet the wife of a Ueutenant in the navy, to whom one of her
letters had been addressed. "I am sorrj- I have not called before," apologised
the visitor; "but there are so many of these UachersI" She had no time to say
more: the young girl's cheek kindled. "Madam," said she springing to her
feet, ' ' I desire no attention from you which would not under any cireumstanoet
be accorded to your daughter's teacher;" and she left the room. It is a matter
of small importance, that, in this case, the young teacher was soon placed in a
position in which her good-will became important to the lieutenant's wife.

"This," you will say, "was at the South. It grew out of that spirit of 'caste'
which died with slaverj-." Is it indeed dead? Is there no spirit of caste in
Massachusetts?

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 15

genial neighborhood, at a lower salary; but she
thought of her young sister, and refused. If the com-
mittee heard of it, they did not offer to increase her
salary. They were men incapable of appreciating her
rare and modest culture. There was a tendency to
consumption in her frame. Had she been happy, she
might have resisted it for years, perhaps for ever; but
with the restless pining at her heart, that mental and
moral marasmus, the physical disease soon showed
itself. In the commencement of the third year of her
teaching, she began to cough; and, in less than three
months from the day when she' heard her last class,
she lay in an early but not unhonored grave. The
deep affection of her classmates in the Normal
School had always^ followed her; and one who
chanced to hear of her illness brightened its rapid
decline. This woman, herself prematurely old, in
consequence of twelve years of labor on the Red
River of Louisiana, the only place open to her, where
her abilities were appreciated to the extent of twelve
hundred dollars a year, and would enable her to sup-
port a widowed mother, — this woman, with her now-
scanty purse, supplied the invalid with fresh flowers
and sweet pictures; and, when her heavy eye grew
weary of gazing, gently closed it in the sleep of
death, scattered rare and fragrant blossoms over her
unconscious form, and followed it to the grave.
Those flowers! brought daily to her teacher 's-desk
by a friendly or loving- hand, they might have fed a
craving heart, and saved a precious life.

16 THE COLLEGE.

It is no new story. You have heard it many times.
Do not reply in the- stale maxims of political econ-
omy. Do not say that woman's labor is cheaper than
man's, because it is more abundant. Unskilled labor,
we will grant you, is more abundant; but such labor
as is here offered must always be rare and valuable.
To the applicants who came to fill her vacant place
the committee said, " We do not expect to find another
capable as she was. We have only to select one that
will doJ' Yet they had not been ashamed to use that
capacity without paying for it! Only ignorance
and prejudice and custom stood in the way of its
appreciation; only the want of that respect which a
citizen can always command was at the bottom of
her social isolation. She never complained; but we
complain for her, sadly conscious, that, until men
themselves perceive what is fit, the remonstrances of
women will be fruitless. One such word as that
spoken by the Hon. Joseph White at Framingham,
in July, 1864, is worth more than all that women can
say. Nevertheless, we women have our duty. It is
to convince and stimulate men. Be on the watch,
then, for such women; and claim for them their place
and remuneration. Help society to understand its
duty, to be frank and honorable. And if certain
services are worth, as in this case, seventeen hundred
and fifty dollars a year, pay for equal services, by
whomsoever rendered an equal sum.

Since I first began to speak upon this subject, a very
great change has taken place: women are put in places

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 17

which require higher culture and greater administra-
tive capacity. They are also paid better wages : these
wages are not yet in fair proportion to what are paid
to men for the same work; and the shameful argu-
ment is still used, that we employ women, chiefly
because men will not work for the same price. The
Roxbury High School, the Shurtleff Grammar School
in Chelsea, the Normal School at St. Louis, and
the Normal School at Framingham, are now under
the charge of women. In the list of teachers from the
Oswego School, we find four who are paid one
thousand dollars a year, and eleven who are paid
seven hundred dollars. Our daily press is very well
satisfied with this; but, since 1860, what portion of a
decent living will seven hundred dollars provide to
a cultivated woman? When the salaries of the St.
Louis teachers were raised in 1866, the principal was
obliged to express her indignation before her salary
was raised to its present sum of two thousand dollars.
Had she been a man, she would^ertainly have had
as much as the principal of the High School; namely,
twenty-seven hundred and fifty dollars. A graduate
of Antioch College, assisting in the High School at St.
Louis, has twelve hundred dollars, where a man would
have seventeen hundred dollars. Miss Brack-
ett's own assistants in the Normal School have eleven
hundred dollars.

The appointment of Miss Johnson to the head of
the Normal School at Framingham will open the
way to a similar change in many quarters, if what

18 THE COLLEGE.

Governor Bullock has not disdained to call the "policy
of Massachusetts" is consistently carried out. I do
not know what salary is offered to Miss Johnson;
but, if it were equal to that of the man who preceded
her, would not the newspapers have told us? The
comparative value of these salaries is not shown by
the figures. It depends on the prices of gold, and of
food and provisions, each year. It cannot be half as
great as an inexperienced person would think.

There is a great want of female teachers of Latin
and French. School committees assure me, that pro-
ficients in language would be certain of good pay in
our high schools. For the most part, women prefer
to devote themselves to mathematics. I used to say,
with a smile, in the Western States, that all the women
could read the "M6canique Celeste;" but they found
Caesar and T^l^maque equally uninteresting. Later,
Colonel Higginson bears witness to the impossibility
of getting good classical teachers.

It is a common idea, that the standard of education
is higher now than it was thirty years ago. It may
be doubted. More things are taught in schools, —
ologies, isms, and the like; but the most thorough
teachers are not the most popular, and it may be
questioned, whether in the best minds on the Conti-
nent, in England, or this country, so great progress
has been made as has been generally claimed. There
is much more liberality in regard to the general ques-
tion, but no more in regard to the ideal standard.

In one of Niebuhr's letters to Madame Hensler,

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 19

he says, in speaking of Klopstock: "The character
of the women is a remarkable feature of the time
of Klopstock's youth. The cultivation of the mind
was carried incomparably farther with them than
with nearly all the young women of our days; and
this we should scarcely have expected to find in the
cotemporaries of our grandmothers. It was not,
therefore, the influence of our native literature; for
that first rose into being along with, and under the
influence of, the love inspired by these charming
maidens. For some time after the Thirty Years' War,
the ladies of Germany, particularly those of the mid-
dle classes, were excessively coarse and uneducated.
This wonderful alteration must have taken place,
therefoi-e, during eighty years, — between 1660 and
1740; though we are quite ignorant how and when
it began."

Passing over to France, we encounter the reputa-
tion of Madame de Sabl^; a woman, let me remark,
for the benefit of those who are afraid that the march
of education will deprive them of their dinners, as
celebrated for her exquisite cooking and delicate
confections as she was for her literary ability. In
speaking of her. Cousin says: "All the literature of
maxims and thoughts, including those of La Roche-
foucauld, grew up in the salon of a lovely woman
withdrawn into a convent. Having no earthly pleas-
ure but that of reliving her life, she knew how to im-
part her own taste to society, in which she met by
chance an accomplished wit, whom she contrived to

20 THE COLLEGE.

turn into a great writer." He is speaking of the
early part of the seventeenth century; and, in spite of
the notorious dissipation of the period, many gifted
and many virtuous women crowded her salon, — the
Princess Palatine, the Princesses of Cond^, de Conti,
de Longueville, and Schomberg, Anna de Rohan, and
Mademoiselle herself. There the gentlemen carried
the pages they wrote at home, and not only bore with,
but accepted, the criticisms of the women. They had
no compensation but their praises, unless, like La
Rochefoucauld, they were cunning enough to demand
a carrot pottage or some preserved plums in exchange
for a page of literature. In England, it is not neces-
sary to avail ourselves of an exceptional education,
like that of Lady Jane Grey. Remembering the
noble culture of Klizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart,
of the sturdy women of the Commonwealth, we
might surely expect a greater progress in the national
idea. But, if its average could be found, neither the
wife of John Hampden nor Lady Russell would ac-
cept it. It would seem that our standard advance,s
if at all, by a series of Hugh Miller's parabolic curves.
What we find, depends upon the point at which we
happen to test the eccentric arc; and, when we enter
the nineteenth century, we are forced to take refuge
in analogy, and ask, "If the ancient Egyptians ever
mastered the Copernican idea, why should Galileo
be imprisoned to-day for insisting that the sun does
not move round the earth?" The stimulating ex-
amples of noble and educated women, which now

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 21

present themselves, do not cheer us as they should,
while they remain exceptions. In making what Dick-
ens would call an "indiscriminate and incontinent '^
excursion, into the regions of female thought and
literature, we find its atmosphere in a somewhat
un ventilated condition, and are reminded of an
opinion of the Druses which does not seem to have
been wholly impertinent, that "literature is a mean
and contemptible occupation, fit only for women.^*
Twenty years ago, when ties of an almost filial ten-
derness linked us to the household of the late Judge
Cranch, we have often followed him, unrecognized, of
a Saturday afternoon, when, returning from the bench,
he climbed Capitol Hill, one hand grasping the handle
of some colored washerwoman's basket, or slinging
her heavy bundle over his shoulder on a stick. The
dear remembrance, sustained by all the sweet and
delicate courtesies of his private life, has always
lain side by side in our mind with that exquisite
Essay of Elia to which he first directed our atten-
tion, in which a noble reverence to woman is incul-
cated, and we are taught to judge every man's respect
for the sex by his demeanor towards its humblest
representative. Yet, if Judge Cranch never swerved
from his gracious dignity, Charles Lamb did. Wo-
man had not gained, in his life-time, such a hold upon
her intellectual rights, that a dinner company dared
chide him, when he said of Letitia Landon, "If she
belonged to me, I would lock her up, and feed her on
bread and water, till she gave up writing poetry. A

22 THE COLLEGE.

female poet, or female author of any kind, ranks be-
low an actress, I think."

We do not quote these words so much against
Lamb himself, — for the lips of Mary Lamb's brother
must have been thick with wine, when, with *' stam-
mering, insufficient sound," he included her in so
sweeping a reprobation, — but to indicate the nature
of that public opinion which is even now dwarfing
the ideals of the best men; to show how little reliance
is to be placed on the standard of the most
generous, when a remark like this, uttered in a large
literary circle, passes without criticism, and is re-
corded without conscious mortification, — recorded, too,
by the father of the Coventry Patmore, who has
known how to offer us, in later times, sugar-plums of
his own coloring — let us add of his own poisoning
also — under the alluring names of "betrothals" and
"espousals." How far the facts are from the ideal
standard, Mrs. Jameson, in a lecture lately delivered,
will help us to show.

"With all our schools," she says, "of all denomi-
nations, it remains an astounding fact, that one-half
of the women who annually become wives, in this
England of ours, cannot sign their names in the par-
ish register; and that this amount of ignorance in
the lower classes is accompanied with an amount of
ill-health, despondency, inaptitude, and uselessness in
the so-called educated classes, which, taken together,
prove that our boasted appliances are to a great ex-
tent failures."

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 23

The ancient standard of Italy was very high, even
in the fifteenth century, if we consider only the liter-
ary skill or mathematical culture frequently desired
and attained; but Anna Maria Mozzoni may con-
gratulate herself on having given a moral and social
impetus to it, which it has never before received.
Her wise, considerate, philosophical suggestions will
meet the cordial welcome of all right-minded women.
If followed out, they will create nobler women than
Tamborni or Laura V'eratti.*

There was no institution in England for the proper
training of sick nurses, when Florence Nightingale
went to Kaiserswerth, a small town near Dusseldorf ,
on the Rhine, to prepare herself to take charge of the
Female Sanitorium. In Great Britain, at this mo-
ment, the excess of the female population over the
male amounts to five hundred thousand souls; and
from all directions we hear the cry, that men need
educated assistants. What is the country doing to
answer this cry, to educate her five hundred thousand
women? In 1825 Dr. Gooch made a noble appeal
to the English public, in behalf of educating women
to be nurses; but there was no response. When the
first school of design was started, a petition was drawn
up and signed, praying that women might not be
taught, at the expense of the Government, arts which
would interfere with the employment of men, and
"take the bread out of their mouths"!

♦ Un Paaao Avanti nella Culture Femminile Fesi e Progetto di Anna Maria«
Motioni Milano. 1866.

24 THE COLLEGE.

Here was an absurd interference with the right of
feeding, on the part of these petitioners! As if wo-
men did not want bread as well as men; and being,
according to authority, the less intelligent and weaker
sex, one would suppose that to help them to find it
might be a part of that protection to which the Gov-
ernment stands pledged, and for which their property
is taxed.

"But," says Mrs. Jameson, "if a petition were
drawn up, and handed to medical men, praying that
women should not be trained as nurses, nor taught
the laws of health, I am afraid there are well-inten-
tioned men, who would, at the time, be induced to
sign it; but I l)elieve that twenty, nay even ten years
hence, they would look back upon their signatures
with as much disgust and amazement as is now ex-
cited by the attempt to explode and sneer down the
school at Marlborough House."

Another noble English woman, Mrs. Barbara Leigh
Bodichon, in a recent pamphlet called "Woman and
Work," gives us the correspondence between Jessie
Meriton White and the various medical schools to
which she applied for admission. This lady had for
several years had charge of two little lame children,
one of them her own nephew. The latter, on account
of some structural defect, had broken his leg sixteen
times. Once, when suitable attendance was not to
be had, his aunt set and splintered it herself. The
physician who examined it advised her to apply for
instruction. She applied to fourteen medical institu-

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 25

tions in the city of London, asking sometimes for
private anatomical instruction. The correspondence
with four colleges in the year 1856 is given, — from
the St. George's, the Royal College of Surgeons, St.
Bartholomew's Hospital, and the University of Lon-
don. It amply bears out her assertion, that she was
nowhere met with solid objections, or with sensible
and logical replies. Sometimes she was told of the in-
delicacy of her request! The University of London,
which- was legally bound by its charter to receive her,
treated her as coolly as the rest; and in no case was
any individual regret expressed for the official de-
cision.

Indelicacy, forsooth! Where can we find it, if not
in the impure nature which raises the objection, and
the low manner of thinking in general society which
consents to receive it? May not the mother, who re-
ceives her naked new-bom child from the hand of
God, fitly ask to understand the liabilities of its little
frame? May not the wife, called in seasons of sick-
ness to the most delicate and trying duties, modestly
ask for that thorough culture which alone can make
those duties easy? And who make this objection?
Men who go shuddering and half-drunken into the
dissecting room, to scatter vile jests above that pros-
trate temple of the Holy Ghost! Men who see
nothing in the exquisite development of God's crea-
tion, but the reflection of their own obscene lives!
Students who know no better way to steel their
courage to the use of the scalpel than to play at

26 THE COLLEGE.

foot -ball on the college green with a human skull,
holding its dignity to the level of their own honor!*

The best hope that Jessie Meriton White has for
England is, that some of the most distinguished pro-
fessors shall consent in time to take classes of female
students.

The office of the physician is as holy as that of the
priest: formerly they were one; now, at least, the
physician should be j)riest-like. Irreverence and im-
purity should be banished from medical ranks. The
science of medicine stands in great need of the in-
tuitive genius of woman. In pursuing it, she will
need the steady caution of man. In this country and
in France, earnest and devoted students of both sexes
have stood in the dissecting room to the benefit of
both. So let them continue to stand, till the spirit is
known by its fruits. An impure man is no better
than an impure woman: but impurity among men
may be concealed. Let it come between the two
sexes, and it will be brought at once into antagonism
with society, and will meet its true desert. The objec-
tion reveals the secrets of the medical college, and is
the strongest argument ever offered for the medical
education of women.

If women are to practise as physicians, some means
should be taken to protect society against those who
are imperfectly educated. What a degree means will

* I would gladly expunge the bitter reproof of these lines; but they record a
fact which occurred at a medical school, where such an application was made,
and must stand as history.

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 27

always be doubtful, until men and women receive
their degrees in the same way and from the same
hands. America stands greatly in need of this pro-
tection. Crowds of unauthorized, half-educated wo-
men, some of whom have not been ashamed to cross
the Atlantic, and have attracted such sympathy
abroad as only a different class of students deserve,
are thronging the valley of the Mississippi, as well as
haunting with their empiricai pretensions the purlieus
of the seaboard cities. If men had received properly
trained women into their colleges and medical socie-
ties, this would not have happened. Cannot such
physicians as Dr. Zakrzewska, Dr. Blackwell, Dr.
Sewall, Dr. Tyng, and Dr. Ross of Milwaukee, unite
to organize a Woman's Medical Society, with an
examining board whose diploma shall attest the char-
acter of the member? Dr. Storer's admirable pam-
phlet entitled "Why not?" points out an evil, which
will never be remedied by thrusting empirical women
into the positions now held by unscrupulous men.*

* The three parte of this book have been made to coaform to the census and
•tatistiea of the year 1860. To bring them up to the year 1860 would require a
repetition of ail the labor originally devoted to the question. That would be
unwise if it were possible, for it could not alter the bearing of any statements;
and it is not possible, because we have now no certain values in America. I
had from the first intended to indicate in notes any important changes that had
taken place in this decade. I had earnestly hoped to be able to contradict
here the statements in the text in regard to medical opportunities for women,
and the proper training of sick nurses, in England. But my English corre-
spondents assure me that I have no occasion to change any thing; that the
facts remain substantially what they were when my manuscript was written.

"But," says some watchtul woman, "has not Miss Garrett taken her degree

28 THE COLLEGE.

And what have we to say of our own country?
Has the American standard reached a safe altitude,
or must we admit that it has the same limitations?
A popular width of view we have certainly gained
in the last half-century; but have we made secure
progress in the right direction? Some eighty years
ago, John Adams wrote of his wife, "This lady was
more beautiful than Lady Russell, had a brighter
genius, more information, and more refined taste, and
was at least her equal in virtues of the heart, in
fortitude and firmness of character, in resignation to

from Apothncarieti' Hall? and have not a few women at least been trained as
sick nursea?"

There is still no institution for the training of sick nurses, as the text aaserts.
Some few have \)ccn trained in hospitals and the like, on conditions of service,
or to supply the need of such institutions themselves. How does the matter
stand with Miss Garrett? The press has made the most of her success: it lies
with us to exhibit the naked truth. After appb^nR in vain to the various medi-
cal colIcKcs. MisM Garrett went to Apothecaries' Hall. Here they refused her;
but she looked up their charter. She found the word indicatinn to whom degrees
should be Rranteii indeterminate, with no character of sex attached to it. Law-
yers told her the hall must grant her a degree, or surrender its charter. She
was wealthy, and in earnest. .She pushed her advantage. "The Apnithecaries'
Hall" pre8cril>ed certain courses of instruction to be pursued and certified before
the degree could be granted. These she pursued in private, i)a>'ing the most ex-
orbitant rnt«'8 for her instruction. In one instance, for a course of lectures, to
which a man's fee would have beon five guineas, she paid fifty: and I am credibly
informed that the round cost of these preparator>- steps must have amounted to
two thousand ix>unds. All honor to Miss Garrett ! Should her gcnuis as a phy-
sician equal her energ>' and her wealth, she may 'gain something for the cause she
has espouseil, by the honor and consideration she will win for her sex. Apart
from thi.s, it will be seen, she has gained nothing. Bribery is not possible to
onlinar>- mortals; and the conditions of the degree, in the present state of
public feeling, would make it wholly impracticable.

The case, as it has been stated to us, is an exemplification, on a gigantic
scale, of all that we complain of; and proves our statement, that women have
not won an education for themselves, till they win with it its legitimate results.

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 29

the will of Heaven, and in all the virtues and graces
of the Christian life. Like Lady Russell, she never
discouraged her husband from running all hazards
for the salvation of his country's liberties; she was
willing to share with me, and that her children should
share with us both, in all the dangerous consequences
we had to hazard."

Will America ever offer to the world a nobler pic-
ture? Is it at this moment above or below our aver-
age ideal? "With such a mother," said John Quincy
Adams, in Boston, less than tweiity years ago, "with

For their opportunities as things now stand, all over the world, women pay a
iwemium on the temui offered to men. I^t them take these opportunities as
tools, and try to win their bread with them, and the wages offered are, as a rule,
a large discount on those offered to men. Politiral eronomy has nothing to do
with the exceptional cases in which this is most evident, — only the common,
habitual idea, that the wages of women must be kept down; and that, to do it,
the value of superior labor must not be recognised, as in the case of the female
teacher quoted in the text.

In the Report of St. Mary's Dispensary for Women and Children, in Mary-
lebooe. I find Mis* Elisabeth Garrett mentioned as the General Medical Attend-
ant. The Devonshire-square Nursing Institute, established, I think, by Mrs.
Fry, twenty years ago. sends out nurses on the request of clergymen. Several
•isters give their whole time to it.

King's College pays one thousand pounds annually for nurses to St. John's
Home.

St. Thomas's Ho^>ital, where nurses are being trained by the Nightingale
fund, rejected fifty applications in six months.

The excitement in England has had a wholesome effect upon colonial action.
The East-Indian Government has lately given Lady Canning twenty thousand
rupees, to assist in building a home for the Calcutta Nurses' Institute; and a
movement is making in India to educate native women as physicians. See,
in the Appendix, the account of Miss Nightingale's School for Nurses in Liver-
pool

Since the above was written, in January, 1867. three ladies have taken their
degrees at Apothecaries' Hall, having passed a good examination, in Euclid,
arithmetic, English history, and Latin. The co$t of these degrees has not trans-
pired.

30 THE COLLEGE.

such a mother, it has been the perpetual instruction of
my life to love and reverence the female sex; but I have
been taught also — and the lesson is still more deeply
impressed — I have been taught not to flatter them."
Noble words! Gentlemen to whom it falls to de-
liver annually Normal-school addresses would do well
to take a lesson from them. They would wince a
little, could they hear the criticisms of the indignant
girls upon their actual advice and praise. How would
these men have liked it, if at fifteen they had been
addressed as fathers of an unborn generation, whose
especial duty it was to adapt themselves to this
sphere? And why should men complain, that women
look to marriage, and marriage only, as salvation, if
the whole tenor of their own influence is used to em-
phasize it as woman's ''manifest destiny"? "Are
there not hvo married, and where is the one?" What
propriety is there is assuming, in advance, that the
sphere which married life opens has a stronger hold
on one sex than the other?

We have said enough to show, that in Germany,
France, England, and America, the ideal standard of
education was sufficiently high over a century ago.
Why has not such actual progress been made as
might have been expected?

Because public opinion has constantly thwarted
the ideal gro\\'th. Educated women have, for the
most part, wanted courage to do what is right, un-
less sustained by men. In education, for the duties
of which they are acknowledged to be superior,

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 31

they have never insisted on the changes they knew
to be necessary, but have uniformly succumbed to
the masculine idea. Shall we blame them? Is a
conflict in the heart of a family a pleasant thing?
Certainly, the hand which the magnanimous sympathy
of men has set free cannot cast the first stone. The
slowness and faithlessness of men too often paralyzes
the best efforts of women. The faith which Isabella
showed Columbus, would be, at this moment, a grate-
ful return from them. Charles Lamb has shown us
how valueless to the working woman the support of
delicate sentiment may be. The ringing of the glasses
round a table dulled his exquisite ear to the fine
spheral harmonies it had once caught. He broke, in
an after-dinner tilt, the very lance with which he had
pierced to the heart of the enemy's shield. If the
ideal standard makes no headway against public
opinion, what encouragement to our hopes does com-
mon life offer?

As exquisite beauty of water, hill, and dale lies hid-
den in many a country hamlet, unheeded by the guide-
book, unsuspected by the traveller on the turnpike
road; so, in society, self-sacrifice, noble daring, and
saintly perseverance, nestle behind the prominent fail-
ure. We find them everywhere, except where we
should most naturally look for them.

There is in England a Society for the Promotion of
Female Education in the East. It undertakes to do
abroad precisely the work that its individual members
refuse to assist the community to do at home. Con-

32 THE COLLEGE.

sequently, their printed schemes read like satires on
their individual convictions. In the year 1835, Miss
Alice Holliday called the attention of this society to
the condition of women in Egypt and Abyssinia. She
asked their sanction to her attempt to educate the
women of Kgypt, with an ultimate view to those of
Abyssinia, whose condition chiefly interested her. She
had pursued a severe course of study, unfriended and
alone, before she asked this help. She had studied
the severe sciences, the antiquities and customs of the
countries themselves, and the Arabic and Coptic lan-
guages. She was fortunate also in stirring tiie enthu-
siasm of a certain Miss Rogers, who, unable to teach,
was yet willing to accompany her friend, and devote
her fortune to their mutual support. As these ladies
wanted no money from the society they consulted, they
were received as agents without difficulty, and reached
Alexandria in the autumn of 1836. At this time
Miss Holliday wrote: "The condition of the Coptic
women is truly lamentable. Their abodes are like the
filthiest holes in London; yet their persons are decked
out in the most costly apparel. I have seen ladies
sitting at their latticed windows, their heads and necks
adorned with pearls and diamonds of the highest
value, their bodies covered with the richest silks and
velvets, while the room they occupied was the most
disgusting scene you can imagine. Smoking and
sleeping occupy their time. Female schools have
never had an existence, and the prejudice against
them is very strong."

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 33

We can recall the argument used in those Eastern
lands, and the answer which civilization offered. "I
am afraid to teach my women," said the Turk: "they
are already crafty and impure. To gather them into
public places is to offer a premium on immodesty,
and a temptation to misconduct." The Christian
answered proudly, "We can trust our women; yes,
even in Paris and London."

Soon after their arrival. Miss Rogers died; but her
friend was not discouraged. In the following March
an officer of state, Hekekyan Effendi, came to inquire
whether she would take charge of the royal women,
one hundred in number, and the nearest relatives of the
sovereign. Much depended, it was thought, upon the
co-operation of the oldest daughter, Nas-lee Hanoom ;
and it was His Highness's desire that the heads of the
family should be formed into a committee to extend
female schools. See how this Mohammedan officer
writes to Miss HoUiday.

"You have no doubt read much about hareems," he
says, "yet little, I fear, that resembles the truth. We
pay great respect to women and aged persons, what-
ever may be our own rank. Our children, however,
are uneducated, in the European sense of the term.
Besides being illiterate, they know nothing of do-
mestic economy; and, in the middling and lower
classes, of the community, this ignorance is so pro-
found as to endanger, by its dire consequences, do-
mestic health, peace, and prosperity. This want is
the first cause of slavery- and its concom'tant vices.

7

34 THE COLLEGE.

In seconding the illustrious efforts of Mehemet Ali, I
have been able to trace our debasement as a nation to
no other cause than the want of a useful and eflficient
moral education for our women. In giving to them
enlightened education, we shall be striking at the root
of the evils that afflict us; we shall diminish the dan-
gers and misfortunes which proceed from ignorance
and idleness. Habits of industry, cleanliness, order,
and economy, by increasing happiness, make us mor-
ally better, and will secure that moral training to our
children which no subsequent effort is sufiicient to
replace."

So true is it that the value of words is compara-
tive, that all this might have been written by some
Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachu-
setts. The arguments of the Turk and Effendi are
very familiar to us. Modem civilized society shuts,
women out of schools to protect their modesty
Modern professors tell us how much they respect wo-
men, and value material training, at the very moment
when they bar the gates of life against her. On the
27th of March, 1838, Miss HoUiday went in state
to the hareem. She was preceded by the two janis-
saries attached to the English Consulate, bearing their
silver wands of office, and accompanied by the wife
of Hekekyan. In the ante-room they were regaled
with coffee out of golden cups set with diamonds.
Young Georgian girls of great beauty brought sherbet
and massive pipes with amber mouth-pieces. They
were then introduced to the Princess Nas-lee, a little

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 35

woman about forty, simply dressed; and, before the
interview ended, Alice had promised to spend four
hours of every day in the hareem. She began with
instruction that tended to civilize daily life; and boxes
of embroidery and baby-clothes, made for patterns in
England, excited the first lively interest. She declined
all invitations to take up her abode in the hareem,
although promised entire liberty. She was huinblCf
and, as a consequence, vrise. She did not expect great
results, or look for much enthusiasm, in the hareem.

In August, she writes: *'My visits have been at-
tended with the most cheering success. I am received
and honored with every possible distinction; but, added
to my school, it is a great fatigue." Her character in
every way sustained the effect of her teaching. She
was offered thirty pounds a month for her attendance
at the hareem, but thought ten pounds sufficient, and
would accept no more. In October, a box of presents
was received from England. When Hekekyan was
invited to look into this box, he seized upon some
scientific plates sent to the young princess. ''Ah!"
said he, "these are the things we need." The Pacha
was captivated, in his turn, by an orrery, and a model
of the Thames Tunnel. The hareem sent back a sim-
ilar box, and Nas-lee herself worked a scarf for the
queen. Miss Holliday was soon ordered to translate
some of her books into Turkish; and her princesses
wrote touching letters to their English friends. Soon
after, we find this indefatigable woman teaching Eng-
lish, French, drawing, and writing, in the hareem of a

36 THE COLLEGE.

late Governor of Cairo. Education must begin with
languages; for Eg>'pt has no literature to offer to her
children. In 1840 Victoria sent to the hareem a por-
trait of herself, which was carried in procession and
hung with proper honors by the side of that of the
pacha. Very soon came an Egyptian Society for the
Promotion of Female Education. Scientific instru-
ments and books were ordered. An infant school be-
gan with one hundred and fifty children. The hareem
demanded another teacher, and Mrs. Lieder was sent
out. Ill 1844 a male school wes formed, and Euro-
pean teachers imported. The young girls, who had
begun with needle-work eight years before, were now
studying Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, geography,
arithmetic, and drawing. **What a change," writes
Alice in 1846, — "what a change within the last ten
years! When I came to Egypt, there was not a wo-
man who could read; and now some hundreds have
not only the power, but the best books. Year after
year, I have been permitted to see the growth of a
new civilization. What a change has come over the
royal family since I first entered it! The desire for
trifles is preparing the way for our noblest gifts; and
a fatal blow has been struck at the whole system
of hareems." It would be pleasant to trace this de-
voted woman farther, to know whether she still lives,
and if she has reached the Abyssinian plains. In this
humble way began the great educational movement
in Egypt, which gave strength and vitality to Me-
hemet All's best-considered plans, which has sent

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 37

scores of young princes to Paris, and will eventually
change the face of the whole land.

Alice Holliday succeeded, because the ''sinews of
war" — namely, the "purse-strings" — were in her own
hands. Very similar in spirit was the enterprise of
Madame Luce in Algiers, of which Madame Bodichon
has given an interesting account. Madame Luce went
to Algiers, soon after the conquest, about 1834, and
was probably a teacher in the family of one of the
resident functionaries. In 1845, nearly nine years after
Alice had begun her Egyptian labors, Madame Luce
was a widow, with very little money to devote to
the work on which she had set her heart; namely, a
school to civilize the women of Algiers. Government
was already beginning to instruct the men; but the
Mohammedan dread of proselytism stood in their
way. The women were in the worst state, — closely
veiled, taught no manual arts, having no skill in
housekeeping even, — for the simple life of a warm
climate, the scanty furniture, give no scope for such
skill. To wash their linen, to clamber over the roofs
to make calls, to offer coffee and receive it, to dress
very splendidly at times, very untidily always, was
the synopsis of their lives. They did not know their
own ages, yet were liable to be sold in marriage at
the age of ten. Upon such material, and at such a
time, — when the value of a Moorish woman was esti-
mated, like that of a cow, by her weight, — Madame
Luce undertook to work. She had a Christian cour-
age in her heart, which might put many a man to
shame.

38 THE COLLEGE.

While laying her plans, she had perfected herself
in the native tongue, and now commenced a campaign
among the families of her acquaintance, coaxing them
to trust their little girls to her for three or four hours
a day, that they might be taught to read and write
French, and also to sew neatly. Her presents, her
philanthropic tact, her solemn promise not to interfere
in matters of religion, won for her, at length, four little
girls, whom she took to her own hired house without a
moment's delay. As the rumor of her success spread,
one child after another dropped in, till she had more
than thirty. Finding the experiment answer beyond
her hopes, she was compelled to demand assistance of
the local government. Men have no faith in quixotic
undertakings. As might have been expected, they
complimented Madame Luce upon her energy, saw
no use in educating Moorish women, and declined to
assist her. She waited, in breathless suspense, till the
day on which the Council were to meet, bribing the
parents, clothing the children, and pursuing her noble
work. ''Surely," she thought, "they will devise some
plan;" but the twilight of the 30th of December
closed in, and they had not even alluded to her school.
On the 1st of January, 1846, it was closed. Nine
hundred miles from Paris, without the modem con-
veniences of transport, what do you suppose this
woman did? Could she give up? She scorned an offer
of personal remuneration made by a few gentlemen,
and told them that what she wanted was adequate
support for a national work. She pawned her plate,

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 39

her jewels, even a gold thimble, and set off for Paris,
where she arrived early in February, and sent in her
report to the Minister of War. She went in person
from deputy to deputy, detailing her plans. Poor
Madame Luce! her success was not quite so speedy
as Alice HoUiday's, whose schools had doubtless
stimulated her efforts. Everywhere she had to com-
bat the scepticism, the indifference, the inertia, of
wordly men. There was no Miss Rogers, with a
kind heart and a long purse, to help her on her way.
Nor did Madame Luce desire that there should be.
She knew that individual efforts of such a kind can
never last long; and she was determined to make the
government adopt and become responsible for her
work. Then it would outlive her. Then it might
redeem the nation. At last, daylight began to dawn.
The government gave her three thousand francs for
her journey, and eleven hundred more on account of
some claim of her deceased husband. They urged
her return to Algiers, and promised still farther sup-
port. So perseveringly had she wrought, that, early
in June, she was abl^ to re-open her school, amid the
rejoicings of parents and children. It was seven
months before the government contrived to put the
school on a better foundation. During this time, her
pupils constantly increased, and she was put to the
greatest straits to keep it together. The Cur6 of
Algiers gave her a little money and a great deal of
sympathy. The Count Guyot, high in office, helped
her from his own purse. When she was entirely

40 THE COLLEGE.

destitute, she would send one of her negresses to
him, and he would send her enough for the day.
On one occasion, he sent a small bag of money, left
by the Due de Nemours for the benefit of a journal
which had ceased to exist. She found in this two
hundred francs, which she received as a direct gift
from Heaven. Thus she got along from hand to
mouth. She engaged an Aral) mistress, who was
remarkably cultivated, to assist her, and to train the
children in her own faith. Pledged as she was not to
instruct them in Christianity, she had the sense to see,
what few would have admitted, that such instruction
was not only necessary, but desirable. It gave them
the knowledge of one Clod, and made clear distinctions
between right and wrong. At last, in January, 1847,
the school was formally adopted, and received its first
visit of inspection. The gentlemen were received by
thirty-two pupils, and the Arab mistress unveiled; a
great triumph of common sense, if we consider how
short a time the school had been opened. Since that
time, the work has steadily prospered. In 1858 it
numbered one hundred and twenty pupils, between
the ages of four and eighteen. The practical wisdom
of Madame Luce led her to establish a workshop,
where the older pupils learned the value of their labor,
and earned a good deal of money. They had always
a week's work in advance, when the wise, slow
government put an end to it, whether to save the
thirty-five pounds a year, which the salary of its
superintendent cost, or to prevent competition with

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 41

the nunneries, Madame Luce has never known. She
thought it the best part of her plan, — far better than
teaching the girls to turn a French phrase neatly
for the satisfaction of inspectors. The govern-
ments are now beginning to understand her value.
They have established a second school in Algiers,
and several in the provinces. The results are not
miraculous, but they plant new germs of moral power
and thought in every family circle which they touch.
Such names as those of Alice Holliday and Madame
Luce have a great value. These women and their
labors are permeated by the Christian idea of self-
surrender. The preponderance of this idea in these
examples distinguishes them above women of the
past, whether German exaltadas, brilliant adventurers
amid the perils of the Fronde, or witty loiterers in the
sdion of Madame de Sabl^.

La Rochefoucauld, who was proud of Mademoi-
selle and her princesses, would only have sneered at
Madame Luce; nor would Lady Russell, nor Mrs.
John Adams, have followed Alice to Egypt cheerfully.
Nor do these two women belong to the army of saints
and martyrs. A religious devotee has in her a mis-
taken enthusiasm, and goes away from the world.
These women are doing the work of saints and mar-
tyrs with a far higher appreciation of God's provi-
dence, of the uses of this world, and with all the
hindrances that fall to the lot of simple human beings.
It is not our intention to multiply such instances here:
they belong, rather, to the illustrations of individual

42 THE COLLEGE.

power. We must not forget, however, the existence,
in England, of that circle of women, of whom Mrs.
Boflichon, Mrs. Hugo Keid, Mrs. Browning, Mrs.
Fox, Mrs. Jameson, and Bessie RajTior Parkes, are
honorable exajnples. We have such lives as those of
Mrs. (laskell tuid Miss Evans; the scientific reputa-
tion not alone of Mrs. Somerville, hut of Mrs Grif-
fith, to whose masculine power of research English
marine hotany may he said to owe its existence, and
who still survives, at an advanced age, to see that
knowledge become popular, in her cheerful and hon-
ored decline, which she pursued, for many a year,
unassisted and alone. We have Mrs. Janet Taylor,
one of the best and most popular teachers of naviga-
tion and nautical mathematics in all England. Her
classes have been celebrated and numerously attended
by men who have been long at sea, as well a.s by
youths preparing for the merchant service; and, still
farther, we have in cultivated circles, to balance the
old prejudice, an encouraging liberality. A review,
published in the Westminster, after the issue of Miss
Martineau's pamphlet on the future government of
India, shows conclusively that any woman who will
do good work may feel sure of honest appreciation.
If she does poor work, she will only the more provoke
the enemy. Nothing could have been more ambitious
than Miss Martineau's theme; but, when she showed
herself well qualified to handle it, no one had any
disposition to consider the choice unwomanly. Such
criticisms are the exponents of the century's expe-

CHKISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 43

rience. They betray the unconscious drift of the
public mind. A book is modest by the side of a
pamphlet. The former may wait its day: the latter
aspires to immediate influence, if it does any thing,
— must mould the hour. It was once the chosen
weapon of Milton and Bolingbroke, later of Ward and
Brougham. Is it nothing, that a woman of advanced
years, writing from an invalid's chamber, feels herself
competent to wield it? Was it nothing, when, by
her tracts on political economy, she gave an impulse
to the middle classes of her native land, for which
busy political men could not find time?

Is it not Godwin who says that ** human nature is
better read in romance than history"? Every actual
life falls short of its ideal; but a poem dares demand
some approximation to its standard from the whole
world. In this way, "Aurora Leigh," into which Mrs.
Browning confesses she has thrown her whole heart,
is a wonderful indication of human thought and feel-
ing. In this country, there are many significant signs
of progress. The name of Maria Mitchell in astron-
omy; of the women engaged in the Coast .^'urvey; of
the professors at Antioch, Vassar, and Oberlin, — are
familiarly known, and have their own power. Only
lately, a Nashua factory-girl takes the highest honors
at the Oread Institute; and its principal is willing to
put her and two other graduates into competition
with any three college graduates in New England for
examination according to the curriculum. When she
finished the education she had first earned the money

44 THE COLLEGE.

to procure, she left her Worcester home, and, with
quiet right-mindedness, went hack to Nashua to labor
for an indigent family. As she tends her loom on the
Jackson Corporation, she will have leisure to investi-
gate her right to these acquisitions.

In support of this "exception," the superintendent
of the New York City Schools, long ago, reported, that
its female schools, whether by merit of teachers or
pupils or l)oth, are of a much higher grade than the
male schools. Eighteen girls' schools are superior, in
average attainment, to the very best boys' school.
He goes on to speak of the rapidity with which
women acquire knowledge, in terms which remiifd us
of Margaret Fuller, when she remarks of Dr. Chan-
ning, that it was not very pleasant to read to him;
** for, " said she, *' he takes in subjects more deliberately
than is conceival)le to us feminine people, with our
habits of ducking, diving, or flying for truth." In
speaking of her classes at Vassar College, Miss
Mitchell says (1865): ''I have a class of seventeen
pupils, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two.
They come to me for fifty minutes every daj'. I
allow them great freedom in questioning, and I am
puzzled by them daily. They show more mathemati-
cal ability, and more originality of thought, than I had
expected. I doubt whether young men would show
as deep an interest. Are there seventeen students in
Harvard College who take mathematical astronomy,
do you think?"

At the session of the Michigan Legislature, held in

CHKISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 45

1857-8, petitions were received asking that women
might be permitted to enjoy all the advantages of the
State University. The committee to whom the sub-
ject was referred, took counsel with the older colleges
at the East, whose whole spirit and method is as
much opposed to such an idea as that of Oxford.
The result was, that they reported against any change
for the present, — a report the more to be regretted, as
Ann Arbor has a broader University foundation than
any institution within the limits of the United States.
The University has lately petitioned for a larger en-
dowment, and again an effort has been made to secure
its advantages for women; Theodore Tilton pleading
before the committee in their behalf, in February,
1867. We know of twenty-seven colleges in the
United States, open to men and women, of which
Oberlin was the noble pioneer.*

The highest culture has been claimed for women:
it has been shown that, for two centuries, the ideal of
such a culture has existed, but has been depressed by
an erroneous public opinion. There has, however,
been a steady growth in the right direction, which en-
titles us to ask for a "revised and corrected" public
opinion. The influence of mental culture is a small
thing by the side of that insinuating atmospheric
power and the customs of society which it controls.
All educated men and women, all liberal souls, there-
fore, should do their utmost to invigorate public opin-

♦ See Appendix.

46 THE COLLEGE.

ion. To allow no weakness to escape us, to challenge
ever>' falsehood as it passes, to brave every insinuation
and sneer, is what duty demands. Can you not bear
to be called '' women 's-rights women "? To whom has
the name ever been agreeable? Society gives the lie
to your purest instincts, and you bear it. It calls the
truths you accept hard names, and you are dumb. It
throws stones, and you shrink behind some ragged
social fence leaving a few weak women to stand the
assault alone.

What influence has the highest literary character
of America, at this moment, on the popular idea of
women? "How much is there that we may not say
aloud,'' wrote Niebuhr to Savigny, "for fear of being
stoned by the stupid good people!" and upon this
principle the thinkers of our society act; not a word
escaping from their guarded homes to cheer the more
exposed workers.

Prescott stabbed Philip II. to the heart without
a qualm. Ticknor could give a life to the romance
of old Spain. Froude has defended Henry VIII.
Our best poets sing verses that enslave, since the song
of beauty echoes alwaj'S among tropical delights.
"Barbara Frietchie" alone has been written for us.
When George Curtis blows his clarion, a courtly
throng come at the call. We yield with the rest to
the charm of the lips on which Attic bees once clus-
tered. What honor do we pay the fair proportions
of the simple truth?

How can we settle questions of right and wrong for

CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND PUBLIC OPINION. 47

remote periods, without knowing the faces of either in
the street to-day? How shall any one honor Marga-
ret of Parma, and pity poor crazy Joan in Spain, and
have no heart for the heroism of Mary Patton? How
unravel with patient study the tracasseries of Eliza-
beth Tudor and Mary Stuart, yet ignore the compli-
cations of the life he himself lives?

When Mary Patton had carried her ship round
Cape Horn, — standing in a parlor where the air was
close, though the breezes that entered at its open
casement swept the Common as they came, a woman
told, with newly kindled enthusiasm, the story of that
wonderful voyage. She gave her, in warm words,
her wifely and womanly due. "She saved the ship,
God bless her!" she said as she concluded; and an-
other voice, that once was sweet, responded, ''More
shame to her!"

*' 'More shame to her!' " repeated the first speaker,
as if she had been struck a sudden blow ; and turning
quickly towards the girl, beautiful, well educated,
carefully reared, who, in the fulness of her twenty
summers, found time for church-going, for clothing
the poor, for elegant study, for every thing but sym-
pathy,— "More shame!" she repeated: "What! for
saving life and property?" — "Better that they should
all have gone to the bottom," returned her friend,
"than -that one woman should step out of her
sphere!" Ah! the Infinite Father knows how to
educate the public opinion that we need. Now and
then he lifts a woman, as he did Mary Patton,

48 THE COLLEGE.

against her will out of her ordinary routine; and,
while all the world gaze at her with tender sj-mpathy,
they half accept the coming future.

Does it sadden you, that we should repeat such
words? They did not shock the ears on which they
fell; they met no farther rebuke than one astonished
question. Yet what did they represent? Not the
public opinion of Mary Patton. The New York un-
derwriters, when they voted her a thousand dollars,
were a fit gauge of that. It was the public opinion
of the "right of vocation" that the young girl uncon-
sciously betrayed. Harsh words die on our lips, as
we think, "This girl's life is aimless. She would
gladly do some noble work, but society does not help
her. She lacks courage to stand alone, and envies
the very woman she decries."

"Public opinion is of slow growth," you retort:
"do not charge its corruptions on the people of to-
day."

The people of to-day are responsible for any cor-
ruptions which they do not reject.

We have seen that the standard of womanly
education does not lead where it should, because
controlled by a public opinion which demands too
little. It becomes us here to investigate the origin
of that public opinion, and to ask the meaning of
the lives which have been lived in its despite.

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 49

n.

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE.

"A governed thought, thinking no thought but good,
Makes crowded houses, holy solitude."

Sanscrit Book of Good Counsels.

^1 ^HE existing public opinion with regard to woman
**■ has been formed by the influence of heathen ages
and institutions, kept up by a mistaken study of the
classics, — a study so pursued, that Athens and Rome,
Aristophanes and Juvenal, are more responsible for
the popular views of woman, and for the popular mis-
takes in regard to man's position toward her, than
any thing that has been written later.

This influence pervades all history; and so the
study of history becomes, in its turn, the source of
still greater and more specious error, except to a few
rare and original minds, whose eccentricities have
been pardoned to their genius, but who have never
influenced the world to the extent that they have
been influenced by it.

The adages or proverbs of all nations are the out-
growths of their first attempts at civilization. They
began at a time which knew neither letter-paper nor
the printing-press; and they perpetuate the rudest
ideas, such as are every way degrading to womanly
virtue. The influence of general literature is impelled

50 THE COLLEGE.

by the mingled current. For many centuries, it was
the outgrowth of male minds only, of such as had
been drilled for seven years at least into all the hea-
thenisms of which we speak.

Women, when they first began to work, followed
the masculine idea, shared the masculine culture. As
a portion of general literature, the novel, as the most
popular, exerts the widest sway. No educational in-
fluence in this country compares with it; even that of
the pulpit looks trivial beside it. There are thousands
whom that influence never reaches; hardly one who
cannot beg or buy a newspaper, with its story by some
^'SylvanusCobb."

From the first splash of the Atlantic on a Mas-
sachusetts beach to the farthest cafion which the
weary footsteps of the Mormon women at this mo-
ment press; from the shell-bound coast of Florida,
hung with garlands of orange and lime, to the cold,
green waters of Lake Superior, in their fretted chalice
of copper and gold, — the novel holds its way. On the
railroad, at the depot, in the Irish hut, in the Indian
lodge, on the steamer and the canal-boat, in the Fifth
avenue palace, and the Five-points den of infamy, its
shabby livery betrays the work that it is doing.

Until very lately, it has kept faith with history and
the classics; but it is passing more and more into the
hands of women, — of late into the hands of noble
and independent women; and there are signs which
indicate that it may soon become a potent influence
of redemption. It has thus far done infinite harm, by

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 51

drawing false distinctions between the masculine and
feminine elements of human nature, and perpetuating^
through the influence of genius often intensifying, the
educational power of a false theory of love.

Social customs follow in the train of literature; and
sometimes in keeping with popular errors, but oftener
in stem opposition to them, are the lives and labors
of remarkable individuals of both sexes, — lives that
show, if they show nothing else, how much the res-
olute endeavor of one noble heart may do towards
making real and. popular its own convictions.

The influence of newspapers sustains, of course,
the general current derived from all these sources.

Public opinion, then, flows out of these streams, —
out of classical literature, history, general reading,
and the proverbial wisdom of all lands; out of social
conventions, and customs and newspapers. These
streams set one way. Only individual influences re-
main, to stem their united force.

We must treat of them more at length, and first of
the classics. Until very lately, there were no proper
helps to the study of Egyptian, Greek, or Roman
mythology. It was studied by the letter, and made
to have more or less meaning, according to the teacher
who interpreted it. Lempri^re had no room for moral
deductions or symbolic indications; his columns read
like a criminal report in the "New York Herald."
The Egyptian mythology was, doubtless, an older off-
shoot from the same stem. Many of its ceremonies,,
its symbols, and its idols, must be confused by the un-

52 THE COLLEGE.

instructed mind with realities of the verj' lowest, per-
haps we should not be far wrong if we said, of the
most revolting stamp. Tlie Greek classics, so far as
I know them, present a singular mixture of influ-
ences; but, where woman is concerned, the lowest
certainly preponderate. We should be sorry to lose
Homer and iEschylus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Xenophon, from our library; but of how many poets
and dramatists, from the few fragments of Pindar and
Anacreon down through the tragic poets. — down,
very far down, indeed, to Aristophanes, — can we say
as much?

There need be no doubt about Aristophanes. The
world would l)e purer, and all women grateful, if
every copy of his works, and every coarse inference
from them, could be swept out of existence to-morrow.
When we find a noble picture in Xenophon, it had a
noble original, like Panthea in Persia, as old perhaps
as that fine saying in the Heetopades which all the
younger \'eds disowTi. When we find an ignoble
thought, it seems to have been bom out of his Greek
experience. Transported by a fair ideal, Plato asks,
in his '' Republic," ''Should not this sex, which we con-
demn to obscure duties, be destined to functions the
most noble and elevated?" But it was only to take
back the words in his "Timaeus," and in the midst of
a society that refused to let the wife sit at table with the
husband, and whose young wives were not "tame"
enough to speak to their husbands, if we may beheve
the words of Xenophon. until after months of mar-

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 63

riage. When Ischomachus, the model of an Athenian
husband, and the friend of Socrates, asked his wife if
she knew whether he had married her for love, **I
know nothing," she replied, **but to be faithful to you,
and to learn what you teach." He responded by an
exhortation on '* staying at home^" which has come
down to posterity, and left her, with a kiss, for the
saloon of Aspasia! Pindar and Anacreon, even when
they find no better representatives than Dr. Wolcott
and Tom Moore, still continue to crown the wine-cup,
and impart a certain grace to unmanly orgies. A
late French writer goes so far as to call Euripides
"a woman-hater, who could not pardon Zeus for
having made woman an indispensable agent in the
preservation of .the species." In his portraits of
Iphigenia and Macaria, Euripides follows his concep-
tion of heroic, not human nature. They are demi-
goddesses; yet how are their white robes stained!
Iphigenia says: —

"More than a thouRand women is one man
Worthy to see the light of day;"

a sentiment which has prevailed ever since.

"Silence and a chaste reserve
Is woman's genuine praise, and to remain
Quiet within the house,"

proceeds Macaria, and still farther: —

"Of prosperous future could I form
One cheerful hope?

A poor forsaken virgin who would deign
To take in marriage? Who would wish for sons
From one so wretched? Better, then, to die
Than bear such undeserved miseries!"

54 THE COLLEGE.

Here is the popular idea which curses society to-day,
— no vocation possible to woman, if she may not be a
wife, and bear children : and these are favorable speci-
mens; they show the practical tendencies of the very
best of Euripides. The heroic portions are like Miri-
am's song, and have nothing to do with us and our
experiences.

In speaking of Aristophanes, I do not speak igno-
rantly. I know how much students consider them-
selves indebted to him for details of manners and
customs, for political and social hints, for a sort of
Dutch school of pen-painting.

But if a nation's life be so very vile, if crimes that
we cannot name and do not understand be among
its amusements, why permit the record to taint the
mind and inflame the imagination of youth? Why
put it with our own hands into the desks of those
in no way prepared to use it? Would you have wit
and humor? Sit down with Douglas Jerrold, or to
the genial table spread by our Boston Autocrat, and
you will have no relish left for the coarse fare of the
Athenian. One of the most vulgar assaults ever
made upon the movement to elevate woman in this
country was made in a respectable quarterly by a
Greek scholar. It was sustained by quotations from
Aristophanes, and concluded by copious translations
from one of his liveliest plays, offered as a specimen
of the "riot and misrule" that we ambitious women
were ready to inaugurate. Coarser words still our
Greek scholar might have taken from the same source

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 55

to illustrate his theory. He knew very well that the
nineteenth century would bear hints, insinuations,
sneers, any thing but plain speaking. We have
limits: he observed them, and forbore. Women some-
times talk of Aristophanes as if they had read his
plays with pleasure; a thing for which we can only
account by supposing that they do not take the whole
significance of what they read, — and this is often the
case with men. But a college furnishes helps. The
mysteries of the well-thumbed English key are trans-
lated afresh into what we may call "college slang,"
illustrated oftentimes by clever if vulgar caricatures,
where a few significant lines tell in a moment what
a pure mind would have pondered years without
perceiving; and if, perchance, some modest woman
finds her friend or lover at this work, society says
only: ''You should not have touched the young
man's book. What harm for him to amuse himself?
— only women should never find it out! Keep them
pure, no matter what becomes of men. What busi-
ness had you to know the meaning of those pencil
marks?"

Kven St. John does not hesitate to condemn Aris-
tophanes.* "With an art in which Shakespeare was
no mean proficient," he begins, "he opens up a more
culpable source of interest in the frequent satire of
vices condemned as commonly as they are practised.
He unveils the mysteries of iniquity with a fearless

♦ Mannera and Customs of Greece, vol. i, p. 337.

56 THE COLLEGE.

and by no means an unreluctant hand. He ventures
fearlessly on themes which few before or since have
touched, despising the stem condemnation of pos-
terity. He evidently shared in the worst corruptions
of his age, and, like many other satirists, availed him-
self joyfully of the mask of satire to entertain his
own imagination with his owii descriptions. No one,
with the least clear-sightedness or candor, can fail
to perceive the depraved moral character of Aristo-
phanes. Only less filthy than Rabelais, his fancy
runs riot among the moral jakes and common sewers
of the world, over which, by consummate art and the
matchless magic of his style, he contrives unhappily
to breathe a fragrance which should never be found
save where virtue is."

When I first iook up my pen, knowing well that I
should speak of Margaret Fuller's beloved Greeks in
a tone somewhat different from hers, I did not know
that I should have the sympathy of a single eminent
scholar.

It was with no common pleasure, therefore, that,
opening her Life at random, one day, I chanced upon
these words from her own pen. She is speaking of
a class of private pupils: —

''I have always thought all that was said about
the anti-religious tendency of a classical education
to be 'auld wives' tales.' But the puzzles (of my
pupils) about N'irgil's notions of heaven and virtue,
and his gracefully described gods and goddesses,
have led me to alter my opinions; and I suspect.

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 57

from reminiscences of my own mental history, that,
if ail teachers do not think the same, it is from
the want of an intimate knowledge of their pupils'
minds. I really find it difficult to keep their morale
steady, and am inclined to think many of my own
sceptical sufferings are traceable to this source. I
well remember what reflections arose in my childish
mind from a comparison of the Hebrew history,
where every moral obliquity is shown out with such
naiveii, and the Greek history, full of sparkling deeds
and brilliant sayings, and their gods and goddesses,
the types of beauty and power, with the dazzling veil
of flowery language and poetical imagery cast over
their vices and failings^"*

We may be permitted also to quote, from the com-
petent pen of Buckle, the following words: —

"We have only to open the Greek literature," he
says, in his lecture on "The Condition of Women,"
*'to see with what airs of superiority, with what se-
rene and lofty contempt, with what mocking and
biting scorn, women were treated by that lively and
ingenious people, who looked upon them merely as
toys:*

Alas! we need no prophet to show that what pol-
lutes the mind of youth and lover, polluting the
ideal of society, must soon pollute the mind of
maiden and mistress. Is that a Christian country
which permits this style of thinking? and how many

* Memoirs of 8, M. FuDer, vol. i. p. 337.

58 THE COLLEGE.

men of the world accept the stainless virginity of
Christ as the world's pattern of highest manliness?

Passing from Greece to Rome, you will see that
even as' we owe to Roman law, before the time of
Justinian, almost all that is obnoxious in the English,
retaining still the strange old Latin terms which were
applied to our relations in a very bar})arous state of
society; so we owe to the time of Augustus, to the
influence of satirists like Horace and Juvenal, almost
all the wide-spread heresies in regard to human na-
ture: if we had but time to look at it, we might say
Galvanism among the rest.

The views of women are still lower. Caesar and
Cicero may be abstract nullities to our young student;
but what can he learn from Ovid? It is not delicate
to name the "Art of Love." In simple, honest truth,
it is the same to read the Metamorphoses. You
cannot ventilate a gross man's atmosphere; all the
Betsy Trotwoods must toss their cushions on the lawn
when he leaves the room. It is the old difference be-
tween "Don Juan" and "Childe Harold," only less. In
the first, the unvarnished play of passion may disgust
you until it instructs; in the second, you have the
despairing misanthropy, the false philosophy, the
devil in Gabriel's own garment, which is always
fascinating to the young, morbid with the stimulus
of growth, and which you might mistake for piety if
you did not know it was born of the lassitude left by
excess.

Latin mjrthology was but the corruption of the

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 59

older types. What was beauty once became here
undisguised coarseness or worse. The gods who
once endured sin now patronized and made money
by it. These things are not without their influence.
Above all, low images, witty slang, and sharp satire,
have force beyond their own, when slowly studied out
by the help of the lexicon. The women to whom I
speak know this very well. They know that the Mo-
lidre, the Dante, the Schiller, studied at school, are
never forgotten. They smile to hear men call them
hard to read: for them they glow with clear and sig-
nificant meaning. Striking passages are indelibly
impressed by associations of time or place or page,
which can never be forgotten. / would not put an
end to classical study; I would only direct attention,
through such remarks, to the dangers attendant on the
present manner of study. Classical teachers should not
be chosen for their learning alone. No Lord Chester-
field should teach manners, but some one whose daily
*^good morning^* is precious. So no coarse, low-minded
man should interpret Greek or Roman, but some noble
soul, not indifferent to social progress, capable of dis-
criminating, and of letting in a little Christian light
upon those pagan times. Where men and women are
taught together, this thing settles itself; and this is a
very strong argument for institutions like Antioch
and Oberlin.

Then might the period passed at the Latin school
and the college become of the greatest moral and in-
tellectual use. Then would no graduating students

60 THE COLLEGE.

run the risk of hearing from their favorite doctor of
divinity, instead of sound scriptural exhortation, some
doctrine whisked out of Epicurus, by a clever but
unconscious leger-de-plume.

Do not tell us, O excellent man! that you have
gone through all this training, and come out with
your soul unstained. We look at you, and see a
temperament cold as ice, passions and imagination
that were never at a blood-heat since you were born,
that never translated the cold paper image into the
warm deed of your conscious mental life; and you
shall not answer for us, nor for our children.

In leaving this branch of our subject to be more
fitly pursued by others, we ought to add that men-
tal purity is not enough insisted upon for either
sex. It is only by the greatest faithfulness from the
beginning in this respect that we become capable of
"touching pitch" at a mature age, in a way to benefit
either ourselves or the community. How desirable it
is to keep the young eye steadily gazing at the light
till it feels all that is lost in darkness, to keep the
atmosphere serene and holy till the necessary conflicts
of life begin! For such a dayspring to existence no
price could be too high; and, if desirable to all, it is
essential to those who inherit degrading tendencies.

We must speak now of history. For the most
part, it has been written by men devoid of intentional
injustice to the sex; but, when a man sits in a certain
light, he is penetrated by its color, as the false shades
in our omnibuses strike the fairest bloom black and

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 61

blue. If the positive knowledge and Christian candor
of the nineteenth century cannot compel Macaulay to
confess that he has libelled the name of William
Perm, what may be expected of the mistakes occa-
sioned by the ignorance, the inadvertence, or the false
theories of the past? Cleariy that they also will re-
main uncorrected. ^

If men start with the idea that woman is an inferior
being, incapable of wide interests, and created for
their pleasure alone; if they enact laws and establish
customs to sustain these views; if, for the most part,
they shut her into hareems, consider her so dangerous
that she may not walk the streets without a veil, —
they will write history in accordance with such views,
and, whatever may be th^ facts, they will be interpret-
ed to suit them. They will dwell upon the lives which
their theories explain: they will touch lightly or ignore
those that puzzle them. We shall hear a great deal
of Cleopatra and Messalina, of the mother of Nero
and of Lucrezia Borgia, of Catharine de Medicis and
Marie Stuart, of the beautiful Gabrielle and Ninon
de L'Enclos. They will tell us of bloody Mary and,
that royal coquette, Elizabeth; and possibly of some
saints and martyrs, not too grand in stature to wear
the strait-jacket of their theories.

If they think that purity is required of woman
alone, and all license permitted to man, they will value
female chastity for the service it does poetry and the
state, but never maidenhood devoted to noble uses
and conscious of an immortal destiny.

62 THE COLLEGE.

Hypatia of Alexandria, noble and queenly, so
queenly that those who did not understand, dared not
libel her, — Hypatia, a woman of intellect so keen and
grasping, that she would have been eminent in the
nineteenth century, and may be met in the circles of
some future sphere, erect and calm, by the side of our
own Margaret Fuller,— she, who died a stainless vir-
gin, torn in pieces by dogs, })ecause she tried to shelter
some wretched Jews from Christian wrath, and could
even hold her Neo-Platonism a holier thing than that
disgraced Christianity, — what do we know of her?
Only the little which the letters of Synesius preserve,
only the testimony borne by a few Christians, fathers
of the Church now, but outlawed then by the popular
grossness! Vet, a i)ure and fragrant waif from the
dark ocean of that past, her name was permitted to
float down to us, till Kingsley caught it, and, with
the unscrupulousness of the advocate, stained it to
serve his purpose.*

It would have been no matter, had not genius set
its seal on the work, and so made it doubtful whether
history has any Hypatia left. We must not fail to
utter constant protest against such unfairness; and to
assert again and again, that not a single weakness or
folly attributed to Hj-jiatia by the novelist — neither
the worship of \>nus Anadyomene nor the prospective
marriage with the Roman governor, neither the super-
stitious fears, the ominous self-conceit, nor the half

* I have sustained this assertion in two articles on Hypatia, published in
Historical Sketches." 1S55.

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 63

conscious personal ambition — is in the least sus-
tained by the facts of history. She was pure and
stainless: let us see to it that such memories are
rescued.

And there is still another name, deeply wronged by
the prejudice and party spirit of the past, which it is
quite possible to redeem: I mean that of Aspasia.
For many centuries, the very sound of it suggested
an image of all womanly grace and genius, devoid
of womanly virtue; the insight of a seer, the elo-
quence of an orator, but the voluptuousness of a
courtesan. Very lately, the manly justice of Thirl-
wall and Grote, and the exquisite taste and imagina-
tion of Walter Savage Landor, have striven to repair
the wrong. Her reputation fell a victim to the gross
puns of Aristophanes, himself the hired mouth-piece
of a political party that hated her, and whose misrep-
resentations were so contemptible in the eyes of Peri-
cles, that he would not interfere to prevent them.

Would you have the history of that immortal mar-
riage written truly?

Imagine the Greek ruler married, for some years,
to a woman of the noblest Athenian blood, already
the mother of two children, but one who, if irre-
proachable in conduct, was utterly incapable of tak-
ing in the scope of his plans, or sharing his lofty,
adventurous thought. After years of weariness passed
in her society, with no rest for his heart and no inspi-
ration for his genius, there came to Athens a woman
and a foreigner, in whom he found his peer, — a

64 THE COLLEGE.

woman who gathered round her in a moment all that
there was of free and noble in that world of poetry,
statesmanship, and art. She was from the islands of
the Archipelago, and, like the women of her country,
walked the streets with her face unveiled.

Hardly had she come, before Socrates and Plato, and
Anaxagoras the pure old man, became her frequent
guests, and honored her with the name of friend. In
such a society, Pericles saw that his own soul would
grow; so sustained, he should be more for Athens
and himself. He was no Christian to deny himself
for the sake of that unhappy wife and children, —
a wife whose discontent had already infected the
state. The gods he knew — Zeus and Eros — smiled
on the step he took. What if the laws of Athens
forbade a legal marriage with a foreigner? Pericles
was Athens; and what he respected, all men must
honor. Aspasia had, so far as we know, a free maiden
heart; and Pericles shows us in what light he regarded
her, by divorcing his wife to consolidate their union,
and subsequently forcing the courts to legitimate her
child. Had he omitted these proofs of his own sin-
cerity and her honor, not a voice would have been
raised against either. What need to take these steps,
if she were the woman Aristophanes would have us
see?

This divorce created or strengthened the political
opposition to Pericles. This opposition was headed
by his two sons and their forsaken mother, joined
by the pure Athenian blood to which theirs was akin.

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 65

and gained all its strength and popularity from the
wit and falsehood of Aristophanes and the players.

Follow the story as it goes, and see Aspasia, at
last, summoned before the Areopagus. What are the
charges against her? The very same that were pre-
ferred against her friends, Socrates and Anaxagoras.
"She walks the streets unveiled, she sits at the table
with men, she does not believe in the Greek gods, she
talks about one sole Creator, she has original ideas
about the motions of the sun and moon; therefore
her society corrupts youth." Not a word about vice
of any sort. Is it for abandoned women that the
best men of any age are willing to entreat before a
senate? The tears which Pericles shed then for
Aspasia glitter like gems on the historic page.

When the plague came, his first thought was for
her safety; and, after his death, her name shares the
retirement of her widowed life. There was a rumor
that she afterward married a rich grazier, whom she
raised to eminence in the state. Not unlikely that
such a rumor might grow in the minds of those who
had not forgotten the men she made, when they
saw the success of Lysicles; but other authors assert
that his wife was the Aspasia who was also known as
a midwife in Athens.

It is a noble picture, it seems to me; and when we
consider the prejudice of a Christian age and country,
the mob that a Bloomer skirt will attract in our own
cities, we need not wonder that slander followed an
unveiled face in Athens.

66 THE COLLEGE.

What do we know of the women of the age of
Augustus? — of the galaxy that spanned the sky of
Louis XIV.?

Do you remember, as you read of those crowds of
worthless women, what sort of public opinion edu-
cated them, — what sort of public opinion such histo-
ries tend to form? Do you ever ask any questions
concerning the men of the same eras, — how they
employed their time, and what part they took in those
games of wanton folly? It is time that some one
should : and I cannot help directing your attention to
the significant fact, that while the word "mistress,"
applied to a woman, serves at once to mark her out
for reprobation, there is no corresponding term, which,
applied to man, produces the same effect; and this
because the interests of the state are still paramount
to the interests of the soul itself.

In speaking of the court of Charles II., Dr. William
Alexander says, in 1799: "Its tane ruined all women:
they were either adored as angels, or degraded to
brute beasts. The satirists, who immediately arose,
despised what they had themselves created, and gave
the character to every line that has since been written
concerning women/' down to the verses of Churchill,
and that often-quoted, well-remembered line of Pope,
with which we need not soil our lips.

We may quote here a criticism upon the "Cinq-
Mars" of Alfred de Mgny, taken from Lady Morgan's
"France." You will find it especially interesting,
because it bears on what has been suggested of the

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 67

influence of history, and may be compared with a
portion of one of Margaret Fuller's letters, in which
she criticises the same work, and makes, in her own
way, parallel reflections.

'*I dipped also," says Lady Morgan, **into the
* Cinq-Mars' of Alfred de Vigny, a charming produc-
tion. It ^ves the best course of practical politics, in
its exposition of the miseries and vices incidental to
the institutions of the middle ages. Behold Riche-
lieu and Louis XIIL in the plentitude of their bad
passions and unquestioned power, when —

'Torture interrogates and Pain replies.'

Behold, too, their victims, — Urbain, Grandier, De
Thou, Cinq-Mars, and the long, heart-rending list
of worth, genius, and innocence immolated. With
such pictures in the hands of the youth of France, it
is impossible they should retrograde. How different
from the works of Louis XV. 's days, when the Mari-
vaux, Crdbillions, and Le Clos wrote for the especial
corruption of that society from whose profligacy they
borrowed their characters, incidents, and morals!
Men would not now dare to name, in the presence of
virtuous women, works which were once in the hands
of every female of rank in France, — works which,
like the novels of Richardson, had the seduction of
innocence for their story, and witty libertinism and
triumphant villany for their principal features.

"With such a literature, it was almost a miracle
that one virtuous woman or one honest man was left

68 THE COLLEGE.

in the country to create that revolution which was to
purify its pestiferous atmosphere. Admirable for its
genius, this work is still more so for its honesty."

In the praise given to this new literature is implied
the censure passed upon the old. Of direct educa-
tional literature, we may say, that all writers, from
Rousseau to Gregory, Fordyce, and the very latest
in our own country, have exercised an ehervating
influence over public opinion, and helped to form
the popular estimate of female ability. Rousseau's
influence is still powerful. Let me quote from his
"Kmilius:" "Researches into abstract and specula-
tive truths, the principles and axioms of science, —
in short, every thing which tends to generalize ideas,
— is out of the province of woman. All her ideas
should be directed to the study of men. As to works
of genius, they are beyond her capacity. She has not
precision enough to succeed in accurate science; and
physical knowledge belongs to those who are most
active and most inquisitive.^'

Alas for Mary Somerville, Janet Taylor, and
Maria Mitchell, as well as for the popular idea that
women are a curious sex! He goes on: "Woman
should have the skill to incline us to do every thing
which her sex will not enable her to do of herself.
She should learn to penetrate the real sentiments
of men, and should have the art to communicate
those which are most agreeable to them, without
seeming to intend it.''

This sounds somewhat barefaced; but it is the

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 69

model of all the advice which society is still giving.
It is refreshing to catch the first gleam of something
better from the author of "Sanford and Merton."
"If women," says Mr. Day, "are in general feeble
both in body and mind, it arises less from nature
than from education. We encourage a vicious in-
dolence and inactivity, which we falsely call delicacy.
Instead of hardening their minds by the severer prin-
ciples of reason and philosophy, we breed them to
useless arts which terminate in vanity or sensuality.
They are taught nothing but idle postures and fool-
ish accomplishments." Dr. Gregory recommends dis-
simulation. Dr. Fordyce advises women to increase
their power by reserve and coldness! When we hear
of the educational restraints still exercised, of the in-
nocent amusements forbidden, the compositions which
may be written, but not read, lest the young girl
might some time become the lecturer, — we cannot
but feel that the step is not so very long from that
time and country to this, and wonder at the folly
which still refuses to trust the laws of God to a
natural development. It is mortifying, too,.to listen to
the silly rhapsodies of Madame de Stael. "Though
Rousseau has endeavored," she says, "to prevent
women from interfering in public affairs, and acting
a brilliant part in political life, yet, in speaking of
them, how much has he done it to their satisfaction!
If he wished to deprive them of some rights foreign
to their sex, how has he for ever asserted for them
all those to which it has a claim! What signifies

70 THE COLLEGE.

it," she continues, ''that his reason disputes with
them for empire, while his heart is still devotedly
theirs?"

What signifies it? It signifies a great deal. It
signifies all the difference between life in a solitary
seraglio, and life with God's world for an inheritance;
all the difference between being the worn-out toy of
one sensualist, and the inspiration of an unborn age;
all the difference between the butterfly and the seraph,
between the imprisoned nun and Longfellow's sweet
St. Philomel. When we read these words, we thank
Margaret Fuller for the very criticism which once
moved a girlish ire. '*De Stael's name," she wrote,
"was not clear of offence; she could not forget the
woman in the thought. Sentimental tears often
dimmed her eagle glance." What a grateful con-
trast to all such sentimentalism do we find in Mar-
garet's own sketch of the earlj' life of Miranda!

"This child was early led to feel herself a child
of the spirit. She took her place easily in the world of
mind. A dignified sense of self-independence was given
as all her portion, and she found it a sure anchor.
Her relations with others were fixed with equal
security. With both men and women they were
noble; affectionate \\'ithout passion, intellectual with-
out coldness. The world was free to her, and she
lived freely in it. Outward adversity came, and
inw\ard conflict; but that self-respect had early been
awakened, which must always lead at last to an out-
ward security and an inward peace." Here is the

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 71

great difficulty in the education of woman, to lead
her to a point from which she shall naturally develop
self-respect, and learn self-help. Old prejudices extin-
guish her as an individual, oblige her to renounce the
inspiration in herself, and yield to all the weaknesses
and wickednesses of man. Look at Chaucer's beau-
ideal of a wife in the tale of Griselda, dwindled now
into the patient Grissel of modern story. In her a
woman is represented as perfect, because she ardently
and constantly loved a monster who gained her by
guile, and brutally abused her. Put the matter into
plain English, and see if you would respect such a
woman now. No: and therefore is it somewhat sad,-
that, in Tennyson's new Idyll, he must recreate this
ideal in the Enid of Geraint; and that, out of four
pictures of womanly love, only one seems human and
natural, and that, the guilty love of Guinevere. The
recently awakened interest in the position of woman
is flooding the country with books relating to her and
her sphere. They have, their very titles have, an im-
mense educational influence. Let me direct your
attention to one published in Boston by a leading
house last winter, and entitled "Remarkable Women
of Different Ages and Nations." Let us read the
names of the thirteen women with whose lives it
seeks to entertain the public: —

Beatrice Cenci, the parricide.

Charlotte Corday, the assassin.

Joanna Southcote, the English prophetess.

Jemima Wilkinson, the American prophetess.

72 THE COLLEGE.

Madame Ureinus, the poisoner.
Madame Gottfried, the poisoner.
Mademoiselle Clairon, the actress.
Harriet Mellon, the actress.
Madame Lenonnand, the fortune-teller.
Angelica Kauffman, the artist.
Marj' Baker, the impost er.
Pope Jean, the pontiff.
Joan of Arc, the warrior.

Look at the list! A.s.sa.ssins, parricides, and poison-
ers, fortune-tellers, and actresses! Let us hope they
will always remain retnarkable! In this list we have
the name of one woman who never lived, and of four
at least who in this country would owe all their celeb-
rity to the ])()lice court; and this while history pants
to be delivered of noble lives not known at all, like
the women of the House of Montefeltro, or little
known, like the pure and heroic ^^^fe of Condd, Clem-
ence de Mailli''. And by what black art, let us ask,
are such names as Beatrice, and Charlotte C'orday,
sweet Joan of Arc, and dear Angelica Kauffman, a
noble woman, whose happiness was wrecked upon
a fiendish jest, juggled into this list? As well might
you put Brutus who killed great Ciesar, and Lucretia
of spotless fame, and Andrea del Sarto who loved a
faithless wife, into the same category. Such a.ssoci-
ation, however false, helps to educate the popular
mind.

Of the power of adages, and that barbaric experi-
ence and civilization of which they are generally the
exponent, we might write volumes; but the subject

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 73

must be dismissed in this connection without a word.
We must pass on to consider the force of social in-
stincts and prejudices which underlie this general
literature, and are as much stronger than it as the
character of a man is stronger than his intellectual
quality. A lecturer once said, "that the first prejudice
which women have to encounter is one which exists
before they are born, which leads fathers instinctively
to look forward to the birth of sons, and to leave little
room in their happy or ambitious schemes for the
coming of a daughter." Not long since, a highly
educated Englishman told me that this remark smote
him to the heart. "I never expected to have any
thing but a son," he declared; "and, when my little
Minnie was born, I had made no preparation for her.
I had neither a thought nor a scheme at her service."

Fanny Wright, in some essays published thirty
years ago, says, "There are some parents who take
one step in duty, and halt at the second. Our sons,"
they say, "will have to exercise political rights, and fill
public offices. We must help them to whatever
knowledge there is going, and make them as sharp-
witted as their neighbors. As for our daughters, they
can never be any thing; in fact, they are nothing.
We give them to their mothers, who will take them to
church and dancing-school, and, with the aid of fine
clothes, fit them out for the market.

"But," she goes on to say, "let possibilities be what
they will, no man has a right to calculate on them for
his sons. He has only to consider them as human

74 THE COLLEGE.

beings, and insure them a full development of all the
faculties which belong to them as such. So, as re-
spects his daughters, he has nothing to do with the
injustice of law, nor the absurdities of society. His
duty is plain, — to train them up ns human beings, to
seek for them, and with them, all just knowledge.
Who among men contend best with the difficulties of
life and society, — the strong-minded or the weak, the
wise or the foolish? Who best control and mould
opposing circumstances, — the educated or the igno-
rant? What is true of thom is true of women also."

In tlie customs of nations, women find the most
discouraging educational influences. While with us
these customs all set one way, they are easily broken
through by the untutored races, who still rely on the
force of their primal instincts. When Captain Wallis
went to see the Queen of Otaheite, a marsh which
crossed the way proved a formidable obstacle to the
puny Anglo-v^axon. No sooner did the queen per-
ceive it, than, taking him up as if he were a meal-bag,
she threw him over her shoulder, and strode along.
Nobody smiled; even Captain W^allis does not appear
to have felt mortified. These people were accustomed
to the physical strength of their queen. It would
be well if civilized nations could imitate them, far
enough at least to remember, that wherever strength,
whether mental or physical, is found, there it certainly
belongs.

In Peru and the Formosa Isles, it is the women
who choose their husbands, and not the men who

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 75

choose their wives; and, from the moment of mar-
riage, the man takes up his abode in his wife's family.
Lord of creation in every other respect, he still owes
to her whatever social standing and privileges he may
possess. Such an exception is valueless, save that it
shows us that sex does not absolutely, of itself, deter-
mine such customs.

The African kings are permitted to have many
wives; but they respect the chastity of women, and
require it. Dr. Livingstone tells us of an instance in
which the royal succession finally lapsed upon a wo-
man. Her counsellors forbade her to marry a single
husband, telling her that it would create jealousies
and divisions in the tribe. She must follow the royal
custom. But pure womanly nature spoke louder than
the counsellors. The poor queen renounced marriage
altogether, and associated a half-brother in the govern-
ment, upon whose children she settled the succession.
Let this beautiful fact shame those coward souls who
fear to trust to the instinctive purity of the sex.

He goes on to state, in a recent letter, that he
has found nothing more remarkable, among the highly
intelligent tribes of the Upper Sambesi, than the re-
spect universally accorded to women.

" Many of the tribes are governed by a female chief.
If you demand any thing of a man," remarks the in-
trepid explorer, ''he replies, 'I will talk with my wife
about it.' If the woman consents, your demand is
granted. If she refuse, you will receive a negative
reply. Women vote in all the public assemblies.

76 THE COLLEGE.

Among the Bushwanas and Kaffirs, the men swear by
their fathers; but among the veritable Africans, occu-
pying the centre of the continent, they always swear
by their mother. If a young man falls in love with a
maiden of another village, he leaves his own, and takes
up his dwelling in hers. He is obliged to provide in
part for the maintenance of his mother-in-law, and to
assume a respectful attitude, a sort of semi-kneeling,
in her presence. I was so much astonished at all
these marks of respect for women, that I inquired of
the Portuguese if such had always been the habit
of the country. They assured me that such had al-
ways been the case."

If women were unwise managers of money, — a
statement frequently made, but which we may safely
deny, — it would be owing to the custom which has,
through long ages, put the purse in the hands of "their
master;" a custom so old, that to "husband" one's
resources is a phrase which expresses man's pecuniary
responsibility, and is always equivalent to locking
one's money up. " It will be time enough," says Mrs.
Kirkland, "to expect from woman a just economy
when she is permitted to distribute a portion of the
family resources. Witness those proud subscription-
lists where one reads, 'Mr. B., twenty dollars;' and,
just below, 'Mrs. B., ten dollars,' — which ten dollars
Mrs. B. never saw, and would ask for in vain to dis-
tribute for her own pleasure."

And this custom has such educational force, that
very liberal men refuse the smallest pecuniary inde-

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 77

pendence to their wives to their very dying day.
"The Turk does not lock up his wife with more care
than the Christian his strong box. To that lock there
is ever but one key, and that the master carries in his
pocket. The case is not altered when the wife is about
to close her weary eyes in death. She may have
earned or inherited or saved the greater part of their
common property, but without his consent she cannot
bequeath a dollar." This passage reminds us of a
criticism on the marriage service attributed to Sir
John Bowring. This eccentric man considers it
wicked from beginning to end. ''Look at it," he
says: "'with this ring I thee wed,' — that's sorcery;
'with my body I thee worship,' — that's idolatry;
'and with all my worldly goods I thee endow,' —
that's a lie!"

It is the long customs of mankind which stand in
the way of educating women to trades and profes-
sions. These matters are mainly in woman's own
hands. One is glad to see in the English Parliament
certain statements made in this connection, and others
also in a London pamphlet on the nature of munic-
ipal government. In reply to the common argument
that women ought not to enter certain vocations^
because they would ultimately find themselves incom-
petent, it is stated, that, in all delicate handicrafts,
men do the same. Thus, of those who learn to make
watches and watchmakers' tools, not one-fifth con-
tinue in the trade; and, in the decoration of that
delicate ware called Bohemian glass, by far the greater

78 THE COLLEGE.

portion of apprentices give it up on account of
natural unfitness.

It is the custom of society which sustain the prej-
udice against literary women. When Dr. Aikin
published his ''Miscellaneous Pieces," Fox met him in
the street. "I particularly admire," said the orator,
complimenting him, "your essay on Inconsistency."
—'•That," said Aikin, "is my sister's."— "Ah! well,
I like that on Monastic Institutions." — "That is also
hers," replied the honest man; and, in li tumult of
confusion, Fox bowed himself away. Had public
feeling been right, how gracefully he might have con-
gratulated the })rother on his sister's ability, how gladly
might that brother have seen her excel himself! This
sister was that Mrs. Harbauld who afterward did such
womanly service, that we feel tempted to forgive
the (»arly fit of sentimentality which found vent in
that rhymed nonsense, concluding, —

"Your h(\st, your s\v(»ott'st oni|>»ro is to please."

The manners of men have their educational influ-
ence. The quiet turning-aside from women when
matters of business, politics, or science are discussed;
the common saying, "What have women to do \sith
that? let them mind their knitting, or their house
affairs;" the short answer when an interested ques-
tion is asked, "You wouldn't understand it, if I told
you," — all these depress and enervate, and, even if
not spoken, the spirit of them animates all social life.
"Men are sus])icious," wrote Dr. Alexander in 1790,

HOW PUBLIC OPtNION IS. MADE. 79

"that a rational education would open the eyes of
women, and prompt them to assert the rights of which
they have always been deprived." But education
could not be withheld nor eyes closed for ever; there-
fore the time has come to claim these rights. The
Sorbonne is already asked why it confers degrees
upon women with one hand, while it quietly locks
Margaret Fuller out of Arago's lecture-room with the
other. Need we inquire what influence it would have
upon society, if all literature and scientific opportuni-
ties, if all societies devoted to natural history and
mathematics, if all colleges and public libraries the
world over, were thrown open to woman?

In inferior circles, where no leading minds preside,
it would be as it is now: there would be much idle
prating, much foolish delay, much inconsequent dis-
cussion; but woman is quick to recognize genius, to
listen when wisdom speaks. She chatters, to be sure,
in the presence of fools; but, when earnest men come
to know the value of her enthusiasm, they will never
be willing to lose it. When the great door of the
scholarly and scientific retreat is once thrown open,
you will be surprised to see the crowd ready to enter;
and, when the sexes kindle into intellectual life to-
gether, many a woman's coals will be modestly laid
upon an honored altar, and the flames will rise all the
higher because they have been so fed.

How can we estimate sufficiently the corrupting in-
fluence of the newspapers of the land?

We may hope your prejudices will defend woman

80 . THE COLLEGE.

here, and you will acknowledge that the minds cannot
be kept pure before whom their details are set. Let
us go father, and say that they cannot be kept pure,
coming in contact as they do with minds among
men that gloat over such records. God is just, and
his compensations are terrible. If you do not spare
the purity of the lowest in the land, you cannot save
that of your wife and daughter. If you will not pro-
tect the vulgar against themselves, you cannot protect
the refined against the vulgar. He is not a pure man,
who, among his fellows, thinks a thought or utters a
word he would blush to have his sister hear. She is
not a pure woman, who, in the seclusion of her
chamber, or gossip with her household, omits one of
the proprieties which delicacy requires. She has no
title to our respect, who is not secure in her oton.
How can we reach such a standard as this, if we
invite pollution daily across our threshold, and call it
harmless because it dresses in printer's ink? It is
not enough that much of the obscenity is pure inven-
tion. The profit of the scandal overbalances the cost
of the libel. The simplest item is turned to gross
account. Even the intimation that the postmaster
has placed a woman at the ladies' window in New
York has to be coupled with the insinuation that she
would have "done better at the gentlemen's." What
business have you or I with details that concern only
judge and jury? What good does it do society to
quote high legal authority upon ''flirtation," unless,
indeed, we learn thereby to estimate aright the cor-

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE. 81

rupting power of the first wrong step? Police reports,
vulgar anecdotes, shocking accidents, and trivial gossip
a child might be ashamed to repeat, make up the mass
of our daily sheets. Happy is the editor who offers
three columns of common sense daily to his readers.
When, alas! shall we have a public willing to pay for
common sense and pure reading alone?

A woman ought to turn like a flash of light from a
foul page, a coarse and vulgar word. No wit should
ever tempt her to read the one, or repeat the other;
and what I say of woman, I mean of man. I have
not two separate moral standards for the sexes.

Margaret Fuller speaks somewhere of certain habits
of impure speech which she had heard attributed to
ladies in a New York hotel. What foundation that
story had, we may never find; but all of us know
some women before whom we keep the coldest re-
serve, and with whom we would never touch many a
subject we should be willing to discuss with any pure-
minded man. Ladies! Not all the gold of Pactolus,
not all the beauty of Anadyomene, not all the wisdom
of Minerva, could make such women ladies! We
cannot redeem the poor denizens of Five Points till
we have redeemed those of the Fifth Avenue.

Our own children must prattle oaths, if we will not
hush the drunken brawler in the streets.

NoTB. — When thia lecture was first delivered, in 1868, it excited more di«-
cussion than any "revolutionary notions" of which I have ever been suspected.
Since then, the same ideas, as applied to other questions, have been expressed
in various quarters. I think a thorough classical education necessary to a
college bred man. As far as I have any opinions to express, they coincide with
those recently uttered by John Stuart Mill at St. Andrew's.
10

82 THE COLLEGE.

I wish to sustain the remarks of the text by the following quotations: —

"Many things with the Greeks and Romans most venerable have not merely
lost their sanctity in our eyes, but present contemptible and even ludicrous
ideas to us. Hence, any illusion to them, or any expression of the feelings con-
nected with them, or even a reference to the habits of thinking which those
feelings have produced, must have an operation moat unpropitious." — Lord
Brocuham.

"The fictions constituting the epic poetry of Homer, Virgil, and their imita-
tors, so far from being consonant with the taste and sense of modem readers,
are, on the contrar>-, often annoying, from the absence of all moral or poetical
justice." — "The gods who preside in this scenic exhibition are tainted with
ever>' vice which has since degraded their supposed subordinates of the human
race. Cruelty, revenge, deceit, hatred, unrelenting rancor, and unbridled lust,
are the qualities which call for approval in a generation professing to feel and
practise virtues of an opposite nature. An exterminating war is undertaken
for the sake of n vacillating adulteress, and its heroes quarrel implacably about
the possession of their female slaves. I'lysses, on his return home, winds up
the 'Odyssey' by a wholesale slaughter of his disorganised subjects, hangs
up a dozen censurable females in a row, and puts Melanthius to a lingering
death by gradual mutilation." — "In their social relations, the Greeks were
licentious and exquisitely depraved. In their domestic habits, they were primi-
tive, destitute, and uncleanly." — Dr. Jacob Bioelow.

These wonls represent the re-action of Christian morality against the abuses
of classical study, to which I allude in my text. But let the classics be taught
properly, and morality will have no complaint to make. We cannot under-
stand the history of the world, without an intelligent investigation of its begin-
nings; but we should be carefully protected against assuming, as reasonable and
proper, either the habits and opinions or the sarcasms of an extinct experience.

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 83

III.

THE MEANING OF THE LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED
PUBLIC OPINION.

"Speak! or I go no further.
I need a goal, an aim. I cannot toil,
Because the steps are here; in their ascent.
Tell me The End, or I sit still and weep."

NatHrliche Tochter.

W/^ have considered the controlling influence ex-
' ^ ercised by consolidated public opinion con-
cerning women. We have asked from what sources
this opinion was derived. We have now to consider
some individual lives which have set it at defiance,
and in that way done something towards its recon-
struction.

Mary Wollstonecraft is chiefly known in this coun-
try as the wife of Godwin, and the author of a "Vin-
dication of the Rights of Woman." This book is
often accused of the most irreligious and libertine
tendencies; and, for many years, her name stood in
my own mind as the representative of an unfortunate
woman of genius, unbalanced in character, and only
to be remembered by the obstacles she had laid in the
path of her sex. I turned instinctively from the idea
I had somehow conceived of her; nor was it till a
singular literary fact, the exponent of her individual
power, arrested my attention, that I was tempted to
take up the "Rights of Woman."

84 THE COLLEGE.

In making a rapid survey of English literature, to
ascertain how many women had made a decisive
mark upon it, and how many works had been pub-
lished especially bearing upon woman's advancement,
I at first experienced a bitter disapiwintment. Upon
approaching the year 1800, however, I found a stream
of literature rushing in, for which I could not ac-
count. It united many rivulets of thought and life.
Some volumes were heavy and oppressive in a double
sense; some were light as pamphlets; some consisted
of translations from other languages; some were bi-
ogra])hies; many were attempts at reconstruction on
a rotten foundation; others, an attempt at the re-
building of society from its very base. But these
works all bore the same stamp, an impress powerful,
but healthy. It seemed as if one thought had ani-
mated all these workers who had taken society by
surprise; for the prejudice and bigotry they must
have aroused had left no corresponding trace. The
prefaces generally began, "On account of the interest
lately excited," "The public mind seeming now to be
interested;" and I read very few volumes before I
discovered that the power which had aroused and in-
terested was no other than Mary Wollstonecraft's
"Rights of Woman."

These books ranged onward from 1790, and the
force of the influence was not spent for twenty years.
Among them, I recall, at this moment, Dr. Alexander's
" History of Women" in two quarto volumes; Matilda
Betham's "Biographical Dictionary," an honest, if not

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 86

a valuable, attempt to supply a want still felt in
English literature; and Colton's translation of the
mathematical works of Maria Agnesi. These were
bom of a common mother. I read the "Vindica-
tion," therefore, with persistent care; looking with
fruitless question for the second and third volumes
that were promised. Could this be the book which
had been so abused for half a century? The Amer-
ican edition had been published before garbling
became, the fashion; but I took pains to collate it
carefully with the English. It was all in vain. I
found only a simple, determined, eloquent plea for a
proper education for women, urged on social, moral,
and religious grounds; an earnest protest against
Rousseau and Dr. Gregory; and a demand that men
should be subject to the same moral laws as women.
Very revolutionary this! Reprint it, under modern
sponsorship, and you would find it perhaps too heavy
to read. It would only repeat what you all know,
and you would miss the fanatical spice of our later
speech. Yet this book was so much needed when
it appeared, that it acted on the under-current of
English thought and life like a subsoil plough, and
brought all manner of abominations to the surface.
The preface alone contains any allusion to woman's
political rights. It is dedicated to Talleyrand, who,
in publishing a pamphlet on national education, had
admitted the inconsistency of debarring women from
their exercise. From this preface, the world took
fright, and we may judge in what manner she intended

86 THE COLLEGE.

to follow up her plea for education. Let me quote
a few passages. ''I earnestly wish," she says, "to
point out in what true dignity and human happi-
ness consist. I wish to persuade women to acquire
strength both of mind and body, and to convince
them, that the soft phrases, 'susceptibility of heart,'
'delicacy of sentiment,' and 'refinement of taste,'
are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness,
and that those beings who are the objects of pity, and
that kind of love which has been termed its sister,
will soon become objects of contempt." — "An air
of fashion is but a badge of slavery." — "It follows,"
she says farther on, "that women should either be
shut up, like Eastern princesses, or educated in such a
manner as to think and act for themselves." — "Sup-
pose a woman trained to obedience, married to a
sensible man, who directs her judgment, without per-
mitting her to feel the servility of her position. She
cannot ensure the life of her protector. He may
die, and leave her at the head of a large family." —
" It is not empire, but equality , woman should contend
for. When women are sufficiently enlightened to
discover their real interests, they will be very ready
to resign all those prerogatives of love ivhich are not
mutual for the calm satisfactions of friendship and
the tender confidence of habitual esteem. Before
marriage, they will not assume any insolent airs,
nor afterwards abjectly submit; but, endeavoring to
act like reasonable creatures in both relations, they
will not be tumbled from a throne to a stool."

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 87

This is the character of the whole book. It con-
tains nothing more subversive of morality than these
words. You cannot do better than read it, and receive,
as I did, a lasting lesson on the folly of prejudice. As
a work of art, it is irregular in method, and impul-
sive in execution; facts not to be wondered at, since
it was written and printed in the brief space of six
weeks. Dr. Channing once wrote of her: "I have
lately read Mary WoUstonecraft's posthumous works.
Her letters towards the close of the first volume are
the best I ever read. They are superior to Sterne's.
I consider her the greatest woman of the age. Her
* Rights of Woman' is a masculine performance, and
ought to be studied by her sex; the sentiments are
noble and generous."

What, then, was the character of the woman? Was
it as strong and generous as the sentiments she advo-
cated? Her life broke down some social barriers,
and, though noble and heroic when viewed from
within, looks hampered and unsatisfactory from the
common stand-point. Godwin has erected an ex-
quisite monument to her memory, in a sketch writ-
ten soon after her decease. Mar>' Wollstonecraft
was bom near London in the year 1759. She
came into an unhappy and uncongenial home. Her
father was a passionate tyrant; her mother, compelled
to submit to his caprice,, became like every other
slave, a tyrant where she had the power, and ruled
her children with a rod of iron. By defending her
mother from her husband's violence, Mary early ex-

88 THE COLLEGE.

tortecl some degree of affection from the one, and
respect from the other. Her father had some prop-
erty, which he seems to have squandered by frequent
changes of abode; and a day school at Beverley, in
Yorkshire, gave her her principal advantages of edu-
cation. An eccentric clergyman at Hoxton, named
Clare, added some farther instruction. Under his
roof, she formed an intimacy with Frances Blood,
destined to influence her whole life. This girl was
remarkably accomplished, and, at the age of eighteen,
supported her father and mother and their family
of younger children. She was delicately neat and
proper in all she did; and her influence' was of the
greatest benefit to Mar>', who had often desired to
assist her family, but was deterred by the helpless
condition of her mother. She now went as com-
panion to a family at Bath, but soon relinquished the
position, on account of her mother's serious illness.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft was exacting and troublesome.
Mary nursed her with devoted care, but, after her
death, bade a final farewell to her father's roof. His
affairs had become wretchedly involved; and, with
Fanny Blood and her two sisters, she proceeded
to open a day school. At first, she had looked
upon Fanny as her superior, but her own force
of character soon found its rightful position. The
.health of her friend broke down under her unnatural
burden, and Mary's devotion to her for years was
beautiful to see. Her marriage and removal to Lis-
bon, in a vain search for health, soon put this devo-
tion to the test.

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 89

At this point, Mary Wollstonecraft's reputation
was unsullied. She was an admirable manager, an
efficient and successful teacher; yet, when Fanny be-
came seriously ill, she did not hesitate to risk her only
means of support, the prosperity of her school, to go
to her. Her friend, Dr. Price, the Unitarian minister,
and Mrs. Burgh, were annoyed at what they consid-
ered a quixotic devotion; but they supplied her with
money, and she went. A few days closed in death
an intimacy of more than ten years, which had been,
until this time, Mary's tenderest interest in life. On
her way home, her moral energy saved the lives of a
French crew in a sailing vessel which she encoun-
tered, just about to founder. Her school had suffered
by her absence; and the pressing necessities of Fan-
ny's family, in which she still took an interest, in-
duced her to have recourse to literature. The first
ten pounds received from her "Thoughts on the Edu-
cation of Daughters" went to their relief. Nothing
can be sadder than to see a young girl placed as
Mary Wollstonecraft now was, — compelled to fulfil
the duties of a father and mother to younger brothers
and sisters. The position is unnatural. Gratitude
might be expected, but envy is more often felt. The
personal advantages sought for their sakes, and not
to be transferred except as a pecuniary profit, she is
supposed to seek for her own. Affection partly yields,
and enthusiasm does not replace it; while site is
urged by necessities which make it difficult to bear
the errors and intractabilities of those she is providing

90 THE COLLEGE.

\

for. Still loving, and desiring to provide for her sis-
ters, Mary thought it better to live apart from them,
and accepted a temporary position as governess in
Lord Kingsborough's family. When they left Eng-
land, she went to Bristol, and published a novel,
which, founded on her ten years of friendly devo-
tion, took the highest rank as a work of senti-
ment. The next three years were spent in her own
house, in London, in the active service of the pub-
lisher, Johnson. She translated from French, Ger-
man, and Italian, wrote several books for children,
and took a large share in the conduct of the ''Ana-
lytical Review."

Her translation of Salzman's " Elements of Mo-
rality" led to an interesting correspondence with its
author, who repaid the service, subsequently, by
translating into (lerman her "Rights of Woman."
These occupations, if they did little towards the dis-
cipline of her powers, served to rouse her from the
dejection into which the death of her friend had
plunged her. Her earnings were now devoted to her
own family. One sister she kept at Paris for two
years to qualify her as a governess; another she
placed as parlor-boarder at a London school. Her
brother James she sent to Woolwich; afterward pro-
curing for him a position in the navy, where he soon
rose to be a lieutenant. Her favorite, Charles, she
placed with a farmer for instruction; and then fitted
him out for America, where he grew wealthy on the
basis she provided. This brother must have left a

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 91

large family in the State of New York. Her brothers
and sisters thus e^ablished, she attempted to rescue
a Support for her father from his broken and confused
fortunes. This proving impossible, he was supported
by her own labor, until his death. The very great
demands made upon her by such natural obligations
did not prevent her from assuming others. She
adopted for her own the child of a dead friend, the
niece of John Hunter. Her brilliancy, her personal
beauty, her unselfish devotion, could not fail to win
for her many loving friends; and among them the
French Revolution found her. The work which first
gave her her proper literary rank was her answer to
Burke's Reflections upon that movement. She wrote
rapidly: her pamphlet was the first of the many that
appeared, and obtained extraordinary success. The
public applause warmed her, and her next production
was her celebrated "Vindication of the Rights of
Woman." The startling energy with which she ex-
ploded the system of gallantry, a miserable relic of
the Stuart courts, roused the p)opular indignation. It
was hard to reconcile the vigor of her rebuke to the
tender sentiment which trembled through the book,
and also to the impression produced by Mary her-
self, lovely in person, and, in the most engaging sense,
feminine in her manners. Her intimacy with the his-
torical painter, Fuseli, followed. He was a man of
powerful genius and strong prejudices. His influ-
ence upon Mary, if it was sometimes refreshing,
could not always have been beneficial. The reader

92 THE COLLEGE. '

of Haydon's Autobiography will remember this man.
A wider knowledge of the world would have pro-
tected her from his influence: as it was, she pur-
sued the intimacy with unsuspecting delight; for
Fusel i was a contented husband, and his wife was
her friend. She was now in her thirty-second year;
she had arrived at a period when domestic happi-
ness of some sort becomes essential to the strongest
woman. The fullest-fruited laurel then withers be-
fore her eyes, if it has not taken root at her own
hearth. At the close of the year 1792, Mar>' took
refuge in Paris from the chagrin and restlessness
which began to oppress her. Her years of toil had
left her sad and lonely: she needed to rest for a little
while in human affection. She could not even write
to her own satisfaction; for her morbid fatigue led
her to reproduce Fuseli's cynicism, and she dared not
trust herself. She entered the best circles of Parisian
society, and became intimate with the leaders of the
Revolution. In four months after her arrival oc-
curred the most untoward event of her life, — her
marriage to a worthless American named Gilbert
Imlay; a name rescued from oblivion only by his
temi)orary attachment to her. I say her marriage, for
Imlay offered himself in marriage, and was accepted
as a husband; but, taking advantage of a custom not
unusual at Paris in those disorderly times, Mary re-
fused to consummate the legal forms. Mr. Imlay had
no ]>roperty. Mary had a large family to support;
and she neither wished to become answerable for

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 93

his debts, nor to make him responsible for hers. She
took the name of Imlay; and, expecting to follow her
brother to America, she obtained from our ambassa-
dor at Paris a certificate of American citizenship, to
serve as a temporary protection. In order that you
may comprehend the precise significance which this
step had in that place and at that time, let me remind
you, that Helen Maria Williams, her personal friend,
and the ward of Dr. Rees of cyclopedic memory, was
married in the same way to a Mr. Edwards, then in
Paris. She was a well-known writer of that period;
and we are still indebted to her for some of the best
hymns sung in our churches, — among them, that
well-known hymn, beginning, "While thee I seek,
protecting Power." But her husband was worthy of
the trust she had reposed in him, and she never
turned a ready pen against the follies of society: so
her character has never stood in the public stocks.

It win be impossible to consider Mary's attach-
ment to Imlay in any degree rational, if we look only
at her character, and keep out of sight her peculiar
personal history.

The dawdling inefficiency and brutal temper of her
father had disgusted her alike with "men of spirit"
and "men of straw." In her husband, she saw, as she
thought, a certain democratic manliness; and his dar-
ing speculations seemed to be inspired by courage
and genius. The affections which had been roused
by her admiring intercourse with Fuseli kindled
gladly on this new shrine, where no social duty, nor

94 THE COLLEGE.

stern sense of personal honor, contended against her
warming fancy. For the first time in her life, she
found herself happy; and happiness gave her back
the beauty of early youth. She was pla>ful, gentle,
sympathetic. Her eyes had new brightness, her
cheeks new color, and the bewitching tenderness of
her smile fascinated the very women who approached
her. She had l>een married eighteen months, her
love braving all the trials that must have come, when
Imlay left her for Ix)ndon. She had expected his
quick return; but delay followed delay, and Mary
passed a year with a new-bom child, learning, by
slow and painful degrees, that she had trusted this
man beyond his worth. At last, he sent for her to
London, where his misconduct affected her mind to
such an extent, that she twice attempted her own life,
and wai> rescued the second time with difficulty. As
soon as she recovered from the fever which had in-
duced delirium, her native strength told her what she
ought to do. Imlay had business in Norway, which
required a confidential and judicious agent. She
determined to take this upon herself; and hoped, by
absence and success, to regain the affection she had
lost. The man was, in no sense, worthy of her. On
her return, she tried, for the sake of their child, to
remain in the same house with him. It was not pos-
sible; and, very soon, a final separation took place.
It would have taken place long before, but that Imlay
was a man who could not wholly escape from a fasci-
nation he had once felt. After he became involved in

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 95

low connections, he could never re-enter her presence,
without resuming, for the time, the sympathetic deli-
cacy befitting her lover. During all this time, Mary
had occupied herself with literary work. She never
spoke of Imlay, and would allow no one to blame
him in her presence. Conscious of her own upright
intentions, it must have been no small mortification to
find her insight and generosity baffled. She felt that
she was herself to blame for having placed an impul-
sive man in a position to which he was wholly une-
qual. She was everywhere received and treated as
a married woman, and lost none of the respect and
affection she had well deserved. In April, 1797, she
was married to Godwin, the author of "St. Leon;"
and this marriage deprived her of two new friends,
whom she held very dear. Godwin was so artless,
that he imagined his wife's social position would be
improved by an honorable marriage; but it obliged
Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Siddons to admit that the
nature of her marriage to Imlay allowed her to take
her divorce into her own hands.

Wonderful inconsistency of society, which, having
interpreted truly her upright nature through years of
desertion, now condemned her, — whether for her first
wrong step, for assuming her own divorce, or for
loving a man of undoubted probity, who could tell?
A short year of undisturbed happiness followed, when
the birth of their only child — the late Mrs. Shelley
— suddenly put an end to her life.

A beautiful memorial survives her, in these words

96 THE COLLEGE.

of her husband. ''This light," he says, ''was lent me
for a very little while, and it is now extinguished for
ever. The strength of Mary's mind lay in her intuition.
In a robust and unwavering judgment of this sort,
there is a kind of wntchcraft. When it decides justly,
it produces a responsive vibration in even*- ingenuous
mind. In this sense, my oscillation and scepticism
were often fixed by her boldness." I am very well
aware how much courage is required of any woman
who shall seem to defend Mary (lodwin from the
popular conception of her. I know that the woman
should herself be spotless who would attempt to rec-
tify that concej)tion, yet two circumstances seem to
compel explanation. In the first place, there is no
question, that if the views of woman which are now
beginning to move society originated with her schol-
arly, republican friend, Mrs. Catharine Macauley,
yet the fire and eloquence of Mary's own words were
needed to give them currency. Society has been just
so far as this, that it has identified her with the sub-
ject of "Woman's Rights;" and all of us who are
carried forward by a momentum which she imparted,
must desire to understand the nature of the impulse
which controls us.

In the second place, Godwin's short Life of her has
been long out of print, and has now become very
rare; and I have not been able to find a single en-
cyclopaedia or biographical dictionary which gives the
facts correctly. Turn to them, and you will find that
Mary Wollstonecraft had a criminal but fruitless at-

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 97

tachment for Fuseli; that she formed another, of the
same kind, for an American, who deserted her. I brand
these statements as malicious falsehoods, carelessly
repeated now that they have been long exploded:
and, as I write these statements, the tears rush to my
eyes; for where are the descendants of the brothers
and sisters whom she reared? where are the kindred
of Fanny Blood and John Hunter, whose lives her
generous efforts gladdened? Nay, might not one
man of the drowning crew she forced the captain of
her ship to rescue, speak a noble word in her behalf?
I have narrated her Ufe with some detail, for you
must understand the facts upon which you pass judg-
ment; and these details are many of them gathered
from private sources.

To understand the strength of the prejudice against
Mary Wollstonecraft, you should see that from all the
autobiographies of the period her name is excluded;
as if the friends of those who had been intimate with
her while living, would not permit the Eissociation of
names after death. I have said, that, until her mar-
riage to Godwin, she kept her place in English
society; and women of the most sensitive propriety,
such as Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Inchbald, admitted
her to their intimacy. How, then, did such a prejudice
grow up? It was probably forming in the popular
mind while she was happy in the affection of her
friends; and, the moment they found it conventionally
needful to sacrifice her, the outbreak was unrestrained.
In the first place, she was an ardent republican; a
11

y» THE COLLEGE.

thing no less antagonistic to English feeling in her
day, than we have seen it prove in ours. In the
second, she was a Unitarian; and Unitarians were
radicals in politics as well as in religion. In the third
place, being a republican, and a resident of Paris in
its troubled times, she was supposed to share the
disorder of its morals; an impression which her at-
tempted suicides no doubt confirmed.

We shall not share in this country- in any prejudice
which republicanism or Unitarianism excited. We
are, I trust, ready to admit that an attempt at suicide
could only come with delirium, for which she would
be as free from responsibility as for a typhoid fever
or an Asiatic cholera. What we have to do, then, is
to understand her relation to the laws of marriage,
and to see how far her second marriage can l)e justi-
fied. When she met Imlay at Paris, I do not think
she had ever considered the social bearing of these
laws, except so far as her mother's experience had
pained her. That experience made her willing to do
what other women about her were doing, with no bad
result that she could see, to keep herself free from
pecuniary entanglement. In one way, this was pru-
dent; in an other way, it was extremely imprudent;
and the imprudence touched a more vital point than
the prudence: but that it was never considered crimi-
nal by wise and candid judges, that she was never
compromised in any relation up to this, the intimacies
we have recorded prove. Had she been a weak, im-
moral woman, she would have continued to live with

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 99

Imlay for her child's sake, but availing herself of
the shelter of a connection from which she recoiled.
At this moment, she wrote to her husband, ''Your
reputation shall not suffer. I shall never have a con-
fidant. I am content with the approbation of my
own mind; and, if there be a Searcher of hearts, mine
will not be rejected." And again: "My child may
have reason to blush for her mother's want of pru-
dence; but she shall never despise me." These are
not the words of a weak or irreligious woman. So
far, then, all was well, except that society had no
efficient outlawry for the man who had deserted her.
She still occasionally met him, but bore the unex-
pected trial, when it came, with dignity and sweetness.
When Godwin sought her in marriage, he knew, of
course, that no legal ties bound her. Mary saw no
harm in using the liberty that remained to her.
**Why could she not have remained single?" said
the world; but had the world been so just and kind
to her, that we could expect her to resist the influence
of a generous and courageous love? Had she lived
in this country, and been divorced by the laws of
Indiana, society would have been silent; but the real
evil would have been the same.

"Never did there exist a woman," said her hus-
band, "who might with less fear expose her actions,
and call upon the universe to judge them." I be-
lieve this to be true so far as her own relations were
concerned; and I believe, that, by her second mar-
riage, she meant to exercise a right of protest against

100 THE COLLEGE.

existing laws, which two of the most gifted children
of the nineteenth century have exercised again in our
own time with emphasis. It requires a philosophic
mind to see the relation of the individual to the
state: heroic, indeed, is the spirit which, perceiving it,
braves the common expectation by a defiant life. On
the other hand, it is by no prejudice that we demand
this account of each person's private affairs. It is
a demand born of an ill-defined, dimly entertained,
but still a just idea of the relations of God, the
family, and the state. I ought not to say so much,
without adding that no one in this country' can ade-
quately judge of the pressure of the marriage laws
as they still exist in England. What is resisted, is,
in most instances, what no American woman would
be expected to l>ear; but for England, as for this
country, I rest in tbe confident hope that a right
adjustment of woman's relation to society will
change healthfully all existing legislation. Such leg-
islation as that of Indiana does not seem to me an
advance, although it may have been demanded by
an advancing public sentiment.

I have said this honestly, with a tender pity in my
heart, to clear the memory of a much-abused woman.
Does any one ask me if I would justify the position in
which she stood? I answer, frankly. No. We do not
live to ourselves alone; and if we are ever tempted
to take a step against the moral convictions of the
world, believing that we can do as we will with our
own, one would think the possibility that children

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 101

may be born to inherit the obloquy we excite, with-
out themselves deserving it, Avould be enough to deter
any right-minded woman. No love or care, or abject
self-sacrifice, can reconcile a child to the stain of ille-
gitimacy. "What does the Lord thy God require of
thee?" — "To do justly, love mercy, and walk hum-
bly." It is not walking humbly to set up our own
conception of fitness against the accumulated expe-
rience of mankind. Still farther: It is of very little
importance what others may think of us, when we
are acting conscientiously; but what we think of
others, our own mood of mind towards God and
man, — that is of the very greatest.

The influence of the "Vindication of the Rights
of Woman" was greatly aided by the efforts of Mr.
Day, and of Maria Edgeworth, whose literary career
began about the time of its publication. Following
closely upon these, and so nearly parallel in effort,
and equal in varied ability, that we hardly know in
what order to name them, are Lady Morgan, Harriet
Martineau, and Mrs. Jameson. Sydney Morgan, sit-
ting alone at the age of fourscore in her tiny house at
Dublin, filled like a museum with the accumulation
of her years of travel, projecting the publication of her
last work, was lately, like Mrs. Somerville at Florence,
a pensioner of Queen Victoria. But, from the hour
of her first appearance as the author of the "Wild
Irish Girl," she has exercised a generous womanly
influence. Under the disguise of novels, books of
travel, and the like, she has published an immense

102 THE COLLEGE.

number of volumes, filled with information which
may be a little too crowded for convenience, but
always accurate, always original, and, for the most
part, received from historic sources, in i)ersonal in-
tercourse. Her warm hatred of tyranny made friends
for her, wherever she went. When a young girl, she
took up the cause of her own country' with a vehe-
mence which won the liberal party, and made her
fashionaV)le before she was approved. *'The wild
Irish girl" and her harp were essential to the success
of every entertainment; and invitations lay two or
three deep for every evening. She entered society
w'ith beauty, wit, and prestige. She might have done
what she would. She chose to remain faithful to un-
popular opinions. After her marriage to Sir Charles
Morgan, they went, for economical reasons, to the
Continent, where they eventually spent many years.
In France, Lafayette, S<5gur, D^non, and L'Aguisseau
were her intimate friends; and in the salon of the
Princess de Salm she was always a welcome guest.
In Germany, Flanders, and Italy, not only the liberal
youth, but the learned eld, crowded her apartments,
gave her minute information, and became devoted
cicerones. The friendship of cardinals and princes
did not dim her natural democracy of view; and her
last words were as true to liberty as her first. Her
works on France and Italy were proscribed in })oth
countries; yet ''Young France" and "Young Italy"
contrived to obtain and read them. She came into
fashion in Paris whenever the Bourbons went out;

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 103

and, when she dined with Rothschild, his famous
cook acknowledged her friendship for the people in
autographs of spun sugar! "We shall meet at the
breakfast of the Austrian ambassador," said a Parisian
fop, as he made his bow. ''Not we,*' she laughed
in answer: "it would be as much as his place is
worth to ask me." Wherever she went, and what-
ever she did, her ears were always open to a woman's
name; and, with the most loyal interest, she gathered
up every thing relating to their lives, their influ-
ence, and their disabilities. What she was told as
gossip, was retained, studied out, and digested, before,
with the piquancy of a French woman and the
warmth of an Irish, it was given to the world. The
first two volumes of her "History of Woman" do not
touch a period of universal interest; but, had she been
able to complete the work, it would have exhausted
the subject. In the B^guine, she says: "Women
meddle with politics as well as tent-stitch, and, like
Madame de Maintenon, bring their work-bags to the
Privy Council, and direct the affairs of Europe while
they trace patterns for footstools. The influence of
woman will ever be exercised directly or indirectly
in all good or evil. It is a part of the scheme
of nature. Give her, then, such light as she is
capable of receiving. Educate her, whatever her
station, for taking her part in society. Her ignorance
has often made her interference fatal; her knowl-
edge, never." The cordial sympathy of her husband
has made Lady Morgan's life beautiful. His legal

104 THE COLLEGE.

knowledge and antiquarian taste added their own
charm to whatever she undertook.

How great and worthy is the literary position of
Harriet Martineau, we all know. Its retro-action-
ar^^ influence in favor of the ability and freedom
of her sex is what we are to indicate here. For
whatever immediate purpose she writes, her words
bear indirectly on the widest womanly emancipa-
tion. May this remark stimulate your curiosity,
and keep you on the alert for pregnant sentences!
Such sentences tell more of the progress of human
thought than some of us suspect: they indicate its
natural, habitual poise. ''Women especially," she
writes, "should be allowed the free use of whatever
strength their Maker has seen fit to give them. It
is essential to the virtue of society, that they should
be allowed the freest moral action, unfettered by
ignorance, and unintimidated by authority; for it is
an unquestioned and unquestionable fact, that, if
women were not weak, men would not be wicked,
and that, if women were bravely pure, there would
be an end of the dastardly tyranny of licentiousness."
This passage will have all the more power over ob-
servant readers, because it occurs unexpectedly, and
marks the opportunity seized to speak a necessary
if unwelcome truth.

What noble service Mrs. Jameson rendered in
the field of art or letters did not leave her indiffer-
ent to the interests of her sex. She was placed in
circumstances to make her see quickly and feel

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 105

deeply all that relates to womanly position and
development. An early martyr to the prejudices of
society; married, I think at sixteen, to a man far
beyond her own rank in life, who left her at the
altar, — she bore the title of wife, and led the life
of a celibate: but her first word for her sex was as
strong and true as her last, while her own path lay
between lines of living fire. Only lately did we
hear of her as a lecturer and reformer; but, nearly
thirty years ago, we might have cut from her pages
the following words: **We are told openly by
moralists and politicians, that it is for the general
good of society, nay, an absolute necessity, that one-
fifth part of the female sex should be condemned
as the legitimate prey of the other, predoomed to
die in reprobation in the streets, in hospitals, that
the virtue of the rest may be preserved, and the pride
and the passions of men both satisfied. But I have
a bitter pleasure in thinking, that this most base and
cruel conventional law is avenged upon those who
made and uphold it; that here the sacrifice of a
certain number of one sex to the permitted license
of the other is no general good, but a general curse,
a very ulcer in the bosom of society." Can you
guess how brave and pure a woman was needed
to write those words? All the indirect tendency of
her works is in keeping with them; and we recognize
the same voice, as she said in a later lecture: —

"When female nurses were to be sent to the
Crimea, there was to be met the mockery of the

106 THE COLLEGE.

light-minded, the atrocious innuendoes of the disso-
lute, the sneers of the ignorant, and the scepticism
of the cold. I have seen men who deem it quite a
natural and proper thing that women — some women
at least — should lead the life of a courtesan, put
on a look of offended propriety at the idea of a
woman nursing a sick soldier. I have seen men —
ay, and women too — who deem it a matter of course
that our streets should be haunted by contagious \ice,
disgusted at the idea of women turning apothecaries
and hdpitalUres. And, worse than all, I have heard
men — and women too — who acknowledge the gos-
pel of Christ, who call themselves by his name, who
believe in his mission of mercy, disj)uting about the
exact shade of orthodoxy in a woman who had offered
up ever>' faculty of her being at the feet of the Re-
deemer." *

Remember that these words were spoken where
they belonged, in the very heart of Belgravia, to the
ver>' people who deserved them, and respect the brave
purity which compelled lips as well as pen to utter-
ance. It would scarce be honest not to say, in this
connection, that Mrs. Jameson took some pains, so
long as she lived, to separate herself from the Ameri-
can Woman 's-Rights party — a party, it may be, only
represented to her by the vulgar pretension of trav-
elling Bloomers. Some of us take comfort in remem-
bering how much more easily the misrepresentations

* In allusioD to the Ututari&nisin of Florence Nightingale.

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 107

of the press, or the intrusions of unfit subjects on
womanly discussion, will float across the wide Atlan-
tic, than our weightier works. When she said, in the
same breath, concerning a decree of the French Con-
sulate, "I confess, I should like to see a decree of ovr
Parliament beginning with a recognition that women
do exist as a part of the community, whose responsi-
bilities are to be acknowledged, and whose capabilities
are to be made available, not separately, but conjointly
with those of men," we know that she worked for
us and with us, and forgive the want of recognition
in gratitude for the real service.

Mrs. Gaskell has perhaps done more than any
woman of this century, not confessedly devoted to
our cause, to elevate the condition of her sex, and
disseminate liberal ideas as to their needs and culture.
The first part of her career was one of those brilliant
successes which startle us into surprise and admira-
tion. It was checked midway by the publication of
her life of -Charlotte Brontd, the best and noblest of
her works. Checked, because condemned in that
instance without a hearing, she could never after-
wards feel the elastic pleasure which was natural to
her in composing and printing; and, for three long
years afterwards, never touched her pen. I would not
allude to this subject, if every notice of her, since her
death, had not done so; repeating the old censure,
as a matter of course. Here in America, we excul-
pate her. The public was wrong, in the first place
inasmuch as it has come to demand biography before

108 THE COLLEGE.

biography is possible. The publisher was wrong, in
the second; for he ought to have known, and could
easily have ascertained, how plain a statement the
English law would permit. The public was still fur-
ther wrong, when it attributed misapprehension and
carelessness to a woman whom it very well knew to
be incapable of either. I, for one, shall never forgive
nor forget the officious censure given by one who
must have known that the legal apolog>' tendered, in
Mrs. (Jaskell's absence, to protect her pecuniary inter-
ests, had the unfortunate effect to put her in a posi-
tion where explanation and self-defence were alike
impossible. Mrs. Claskell had deserved the steady
confidence of the public.

I have kept till the last the name of Fredrika Bremer,
whose good fortune it was to secure lasting benefits
to her sex. God sent to her early years dark trials
and privations. Her father's tyrannical hand crushed
all power and loveliness out of her life. At first, she
rebelled against her sufferings; but, when he died in
her girlhood, she was able to see that they lent strength
to her efforts for her sex. It was the rumor of what
we are doing in this country for women that first
drew her hither. It is not the fashion for Miss Bre-
mer's friends fully to recognize her position in this
respect. I ow^e my ow^n convictions on the subject of
suffrage to the reflections she awakened. When I
told her that my mind was undecided on this point,
she showed her disappointment so plainly, that I
was forced to reconsider the whole subject. Miss

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 109

Bremer did not hurry her work: she had a serene
confidence that she should be permitted to finish what
she had begun. She secured popularity by her cheer-
ful humor, her genuine feeling, her true appreciation
of men, and her insight into the conditions of family
happiness, before she made any direct appeal against
existing laws. Those who will read her novels thought-
fully, however, will see that she was, from the first,
intent upon making such an effort possible. From
the beginning, she pleaded for the social independ-
ence of wives; asked for them a separate purse;
showed that woman could not even give her love
freely, until she was indejjendent of him to whom she
owed it. To a just state of society, to noble family
relations, entire freedom is essential.

Under her influence, females had been admitted to
the Musical Academy. The directors of the Industrial
School at Stockholm had attempted to form, a class,
and Professor Quamstromm had opened his classes
at the Academy of Fine Arts to women. Cheered
by her sympathy, a female surgeon had sustained her-
self in Stockholm; and Bishop Argardh indorsed the
darkest picture she had ever drawn, when he pleaded
with the state to establish a girls'-school. It was at
this juncture that Miss Bremer published ''Hertha."
This book was a direct blow aimed at the laws of
Sweden concerning women. By this time, she had
herself become, in Sweden, what we might fitly call a
''crowned head." She was everywhere treated with
distinction; and her sudden appearance in any place

110 THE COLLEGE.

was greeted with the enthusiasm usually shown by-
such nations only to their princes. She said of her
new book. '*I have poured into it more of my heart
and life than into any thing which I have ever writ-
ten;" and verily she had her reward. She was at
Rome, two years after, — in 1858, — when the glad
news reached her, that King Oscar, at the opening of
the Diet, had proposed a bill entitling women to hold
independent property at the age of twenty-five. All
Sweden had read the book which moved the heart of
the king; and the assembled representatives rent the
air with their acclamations.

In the following spring, the old University town of
Upsala, where her friend Bergfalk occupies a chair,
granted the right of suffrage to fifty women owning
real estate, and to thirty-one doing business on their
own account. The representative whom their votes
went to elect was to sit in the House of Burgesses.
Miss Bremer was not ashamed to shed happy tears
when this news reached her. If she had ever re-
proached Providence with the bitter sorrow of her
early years, she was penitent and grateful now. Then
was fulfilled the prophecy which she had uttered, as she
left our shores, "The nation which was first among
Scandinavians to liberate its slaves, shall also be the
first to emancipate its women."

This is not the place to unfold the delicate sheaths
of meaning with which flower-like Robert Browning
invests his thought; but the man who wrote the
"Blot on the 'Scutcheon, "and the exquisite sketch

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. Ill

of "Pippa Passes," has done such justice to the sex,
and so far helped the cause of right feeling and right
thinking in respect to some of the most delicate
problems that concern it, that we are compelled to
speak of him gratefully. His marriage, too, is still
fragrant; a full-fruited flower of promise to the world,
which makes us see the best things possible, and be-
lieve that the time is coming when man and woman
will not seldom stand before the altar as equal and
individual, yet scarcely one. To Elizabeth Brown-
ing, to whom was given in her life that place of
pre-eminence among women which Shakspere must
always hold among men, we owe grateful thanks,
for the scholarly achievement, the conscientious study,
the womanly zeal, which distinguished all her work.
When theology sometimes wrestled with poetry in
her speech, we translated it into a freer tongue, and
thanked her all the same. In ''Aurora Leigh** she
stabbed every conventional falsity to the heart, and
held the ear tenaciously till she had delivered all her
oracle.

"I read a score of books on womanhood,
To prove, if women do not think at all,
They may teach thinking, — books demonstrating
Their right of comprehending husband's talk,
When not too deep, and even of answering."

" I perceive
The headache is too noble for my sex :
You think the heartache would sound decenter."

"Such praise
As men give women, when they judge a book,
Not as mere work, but as mere womaris work,
Expressing the comparative respect,
Which means the absolute scorn."

112 THE COLLEGE.

The woman who wrote these words counsels us from
her grave; and, taught by her, we do not hesitate to
say,—

"Deal with us nobly, women though we be,
And honor us with truth, if not with praise."

Yet these were all to a certain extent indirect in-
fluences. Can I utter without trembling the two
names which sit upon the thrones of female power
in the Old World and the Now? I mean Charlotte
Bronte and Margaret F'uller. I wish I could confer a
proper emphasis upon my words, when I say that the
publication of 'Mane Eyre" formed the chief era in
the literature of women since that literature began.
Into it was compressed all the feeling and experience
of a very remarkable life, — feeling and experience en-
tertained without the smallest sense of resiwnsi-
bility to the conventional world. The life of the
author touched the restrictions of society, as the
spheral curves touch the tangents which square them,
so slightly as never to impair its wonderful individu-
ality. Who would not seek a wife like Jane Eyre?
Who does not rejoice in the smallest detail of that
vsparkling and varied courtship? Think of those
words of Rochester, when, holding her with the grasp
of a madman, he says, ''Never was any thing at
once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she
feels in my hand. I could bend her with my finger
and thumb. And what good would it do, if I bent,
if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye;
consider the wild, resolute, free thing looking out

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 113

of it, defying me with more than courage, — with
a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage,
I cannot get at it, the savage beautiful creature!
If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage
will only set the captive free. Conqueror I might
be of the house; but the inmate would escape to
heaven, before I could call myself possessor of its
clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit, with will
and energ>' and virtue and purity, that I want, not
alone your brittle frame."

And from what literature, of ancient or modern
growth, shall we match Jane's answer, when passion
presses, crying, "Who in the world cares for you? or
who will be injured by what you do?"

"/ care for myself,'^ is the indomitable reply: "the
more 8olitar>% the more friendless, the more unsus-
tained, I am, the more I will respect myself. I will
keep the law given by God, sanctioned by man. I
will hold by the principles received by me when I
was sane, and not mad, as I am now. Laws and
principles are not for the times when there is no
temptation. They are for such moments as this,
when body and soul rise in mutiny against rigor.
Stringent are they? Inviolate they shall be. If, at
my individual convenience, I might break them, what
would be their worth? They have a worth, so I have
always believed; and, if I cannot believe it now, it is
because I am insane, with my veins running fire,
and my heart beating faster than I can count. Pre-
conceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all

12

114 THE COLLEGE.

I have at this hour to stand by. There I plant my
foot!"

Other women have been brave and pure, but this
woman was an Abdiel. Never had she faltered in her
life, never encountered a sham but to crush it. We
did not know what freedom meant, till we had this
book. Its advent was an era, not merely in the liter-
ature, but in the life, of woman. Its welcome, so
profound, so stirrinj^, betrayed the secrets of womanly
nature. Do you remember how you sat and dis-
cussed this book, far into the night? — how you
wondered whether man or woman wrote it? — how
the women it enfranchised looked their scorn when
you suggested the first possibility? — how your tem-
per and feeling, and sense of justice, were roused by it?
All this was because a life resolute and free poured
itself out between those covers. A woman delicate,
cleanly, quaint, .secured the polished purity of every
page. Will you start, if I ask you who ever stated
the Woman's-Rights' argument with the serene force
of the little lace-mender in the *' Professor"? Do you
not envy her and her husband the happy English
home secured by their united labors? Ah! when
she gave us later that exquisite miniature of her
sister Emily which she called ''Shirley," that noble
bit of Rubens color which she named *'Villette," the
same flood of womanly thought and feeling poured
through the prayer, — the same flood, though we no
longer started as when we first heard society's signal
gun, and saw her whole fleet hoist the flag of dis-

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 115

tress. Women ought to buy that old stone house
upon the hillside, set in among the tombs, and framed
in purple heather. The lives which began and ended
there have hedged it in with laurels. Read this life
and these works, and learn what fortunes hang upon
a noble living. Read them, that you may learn how
to cheer the world with what is natural and dignified,
to do your Master's work, regardless of narrow criti-
cism or still disdain. The host of imitators who
stand about Charlotte Bronte's still-open grave are the
best tribute to the power that went out from her, —
a power tempered by the sweetest personal graces, by
a housekeeping delicate and pure and tasteful, which
never lets us dream of Jane in her school at Morton,
of Shirley in her peach-room parlor, of the lace-
mender at the professor's desk, or Lucy Snowe in the
first class of Paul Emanuel, as otherwise than bril-
liant in cleanliness and order. I turn reluctantly from
a life so well known, and now, thank God, beginning
to be so well understood.

I do not treat of Margaret Fuller as a literary
power; for, whatever may be her rank in this respect,
she does not exert a tithe of the influence in this way,
which attaches to the idea of her as a person, to her-
self as the centre of the radiant and shining group of
women who were known as "Margaret's friends."

Her "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" is a
scholarly, refined, and noble plea for the freedom of
her sex. In point of ability, no book can be named
with it, if we except that of Madame d'H^ricourt.

116 THE COLLEGE.

It has an advantage over that of Mar>' Wollstone-
craft, in being, so far as the author could make it, a
complete statement; but it is written so much more
from the stand-point of thought and feeling, that it
has had a far more limited influence. There is not a
word in the "Vindication" which the most simple
might not read as he ran, and, reading, understand;
but much of the "Nineteenth Century" depends
upon a critical scholarship, and an evasive delicacy
of sentiment and thought, which elude the common
grasp. Precious passages have become axioms. "Let
her be a sea-captain, if she will," has a power in both
hemispheres; for it has been justified to learned and
simple, by Captain Betsy, of the Scotch schooner,
"Cleotus," and the sweet and noble woman who so
lately carried an American ship round Cape Horn.
The life of Margaret Fuller is in ever>'bo(ly's hands;
but not even Boston women appreciate her personal
influence. Who else could be expected to understand
it? Her verj- existence was a stimulus to endeavor;
and hundreds of women become practical ''Exalta-
das," because they saw the position she was permitted
to hold. "I always know a Boston woman," said a
rough German miner to me, beyond Lake Huron:
"she always has ^Margaret Fuller's stamp upon her;"
and I felt that his words were true. We have missed
her sadly since she was taken from us. Ever memo-
rable will be the "Life and Writings," which revive
our memories better than they satisfy our demands.
"It will be seen," she once wrote, "that my youth

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 117

was not unfriended, since those great minds came to
me in kindness.'* We have not been unfriended
either, since she was permitted to come to us. If I
were to characterize her in two words, it would be
as "Truth-teller and Truth-compeller." She not only
spoke what she thought, in her own way, let it be
abrupt or gentle, but she compelled us to do the
same. There was something in her presence which
tore away all disguises: even unconscious pretension
could not bear it. We were soon made to feel
whether we had any right to our own thoughts.
"What I especially admired in her," says Dr. Hedge,
"was her intellectual sincerity. Her judgments took
no bribe from her sex or sphere, nor from custom nor
tradition nor caprice. She valued truth supremely,
both for herself and others. The question with her
was, not what should be believed, nor what ought to be
true, but what is true. Her 'yes' and 'no' were
never conventional; and she often amazed people by
a cool and unsuspected dissent from the common-
places of popular acceptation."

"Truth-teller and Truth-compeller," — the words
seem to fall like the shadow of Omnipotence, a noble
fillet for a woman's forehead. What a noble charac-
ter that must have been, which inspired the remark
made after her marriage: —

"Her life, since she went abroad, is wholly un-
known to me; but I have an unshaken trust, that
what Margaret did she can defend." An "unshaken
trust," — such words are a challenge to all noble liv-

118 THE COLLEGE.

ing. In great and small matters, we are told, she
was a woman of her word, and so gave those who
conversed with her the unspeakable comfort which
flows from plaindealing. "I walk over burning
ploughshares, and they sear my feet, yet nothing but
truth will do," she says; and again, in a letter to a
friend: '*My own entire sincerity in every passage of
life gives me a right to expect that I shall be met by
no unmeaning phrases or attentions."

I enlarge upon this trait of character, for I think it
Margaret's due. Everybody here knows her reputa-
tion as a scholar: few know her character as a
woman. In beautiful keeping with this trait was her
letter to Miss Martineau, after the publication of her
book upon this country.

''When Jouffroy writes his lectures," she says, "I
am not conversant with all his topics; but I can
appreciate his lucid style and admirable method.
When Webster speaks on the currency, I do not un-
derstand the subject; but I do understand his mode
of treating it, and can see what a blaze of light flows-
from his torch. When Harriet Martineau writes
about America, I often cannot test that rashness and
inaccuracy of which I hear so much; but I can feel
that they exist. A want of soundness and patient
investigation is found throughout the book; and I
cannot be happy in it, because it is not worthy of
my friend.

"I have thought it right to say all this to you, since
I feel it. I have shrunk from the effort, for I fear that

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 119

I must lose you. If your heart turn from me, I shall
still love you; and I could no more have been happy
in your friendship, if I had not spoken out."

What a noble pattern in that letter for us all!
The electric power of her womanhood, which claimed
the inmost being of every one with whom she came
in contact, I can best express in the words of Em-
erson:—

"She had found out her own secret by early com-
parison, and knew what power to draw confidence,
what necessity to lead in every circle, belonged of
right to her. She had drawn to her every superior
young man or woman she had ever met; and whole
romances of life and love had been confided, coun-
selled, thought, and lived through, in her cognizance
and sympathy. She extorted the secret of life which
cannot be told without setting heart and mind in
a glow, and thus she had the best of those she saw.
She lived in a superior circle; for people suppressed
all their commonplaces in her presence. Her mood
applied itself to the mood of her companion, point
to point, in the most limber, sinuous, vital way, and
drew out the most extraordinary narratives."

When we remember this wealth of sympathy and
appreciation, is it not sad to hear her say, no one
ever gave such invitation to her mind as to tempt
her to a full confession? — that she felt a power to
enrich her thought with such wealth and variety of
embellishment as would no doubt be tedious to such
as she conversed with?

120 THE COLLEGE.

A bitter reproach to us women, certainly. What
better could we do than listen, while she embellished
her thought with all wealth and variety possible?
And I quote the saying, because hers are not the only
noble lips which have a right to repeat it. Could
we but be patient listeners! In that way, we might
educate powers of expression, and become possessed
of wealth of which we have ver>' little idea. What
does such a saying record, — her egotism or our self-
ishness, her insatiable demand or our bankruptcy?
We may well confess to mortification when we read;
but it is not felt for her. Ver>^ beautiful is the con-
ception of this Memoir of Margaret, this triune testi-
mony of independent minds. We should be more
grateful for the analytical skill shown in Emerson's
contribution, did it not bear witness to power j rather
than appreciation. We see, though he could not,
what Margaret missed in her friend. She could
not exempt the finest thinker she knew from the
customary tribute; but he could not pay her in cur-
rent coin, — only in some native ore, which it cost her
much to make available at need. Some time may
women write the lives of women! Why not warm
thy scalpel, O philosopher! out of regard to what
was once tender, quivering, human flesh? Rumor
and prejudice carried the news of Margaret's faults
far enough while she was living: what we need now
is to send on the same wave the most abundant
and satisfying proof of her goodness and genius.
When great men speak of her, they should speak

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 121

grandly and find for what vulgar natures must mis-
conceive, the noble and generous interpretation. I
do not mean that she would have shrunk from the
boldest statement of the truth. It was in her to
invite it. **She could say," says Emerson, "as if she
were stating a scientific fact, in enumerating the
merits of somebody, he appreciates me;" and he refers
this saying to the "mountainous me" of hereditary
organization, italicizing the offending monosyllable.
But, in Margaret's mind, the emphasis lay quite as
often on the word appreciates; and the statement
was of a psychological fact, a superiority to vulgar
prejudice, which laid some claim to her generous
estimate in return. Ah! when those we love are
gone for ever, their faults drop away, like the gar-
ment, which was of the earth, earthy; but to great
and noble words, to heroic and womanly living,
God has given a power of blessing far beyond the
grave. We lost her at a moment when we could
ill bear it, — when, instructed by the noble sympathies
of Mazzini, softened by her own sweet and tender
ministrations in Italian hospitals, revealed at length
in loving beauty by a wife's and mother's expe-
rience, she might have come home the woman she
had often made us dream of. We see the shadow
of it all in that little picture which once hung on the
walls of the Boston Athenaeum; and, God willing,
we shall yet encounter the glad reality beyond the
reach of tempests, beyond the need of wreck, lifted
into true deserving of so great a privilege on the
broad ocean of an Infinite Love!

122 THE COLLEGE.

Florence Nightingale is no exception in the his-
tory of her sex, only a consummate flower of its
daily bloom. Ever since the commencement of the
Christian era, whole armies of women have devoted
themselves, not for a few years only, like Florence
Nightingale, but for their whole lives long, to the
same painful duties, — women who organized their
bands with an efficiency and thoroughness, felt to
this very day, and which made them the competent
instructors of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea.
The holiest vocation fails to instruct the unprepared
mind. The soil of the nineteenth century is fallow;
but in the year 385 a saintly woman traversed those
same Crimean shores. Of her it was written: —

"She wa.s marvellous debonaire and piteous to
them that were sicke and comforted them, and served
them right humbly, and gave them largely to eat, such
as they Jisked; but to herself she was hard in her
sickness and scarce, for she refused to eat flesh, how
well she gave it to others, and also to drink wine. She
was oft by them that were sicke, and she laid the pil-
lows aright and in point, and she rubbed their feet,
and boiled water to wash them; and it seemed to her
that the less she did to the sicke in service, so much
the less service did she to God, and deserved the less
mercy; therefore she was to them piteous, and noth-
ing to herself."

The Church canonized this woman, who carried
her own substance to the work in which the British
Government sustained Florence Nightingale so many

LIVES THAT HAVfi MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 123

centuries later; but the public mind was not prepared,
so the world has never rung to the name of Santa
Paula.

Florence Nightingale's most heroic service lay in
breaking open the storehouses at Scutari. It may
have cost her very little, but at that moment the force
,di accumulated character made itself felt. An ever-
lasting reproach to all cowards of circumlocution
offices, the duty not a single commissioned officer had
courage to assume has gently crowned the woman
with the woven suffrages of the world.

The name of Mary Patton has with us also a true
educational power. There was no obstacle nor vulgar
prejudice which this heroic girl was not called to
combat. Not twenty years old, with two little chil-
dren clinging to her skirts, and the great primal
sorrow of her sex overshadowing her afresh, with
her husband beref,t of reason, and neither nurse nor
physician at hand, she kept the ship's reckoning,
overpowered a mutinous mate, and carried her vessel
triumphantly in to the destined port.

The author of "John Halifax" has so laid us under
obligation by work faithfully done, that it seems worth
while to indicate the inconsistencies which warp her
''Thoughts about Women."

She speaks of the " Woman 's-Rights movement "
in this country, as if it were a movement to force
women into a certain position, instead of an effort
to set them free, to the end that they may ascertain
whether they have any capacity for it. She sneers at

124 THE COLLEGE.

letters and account-books kept by women; and we
read her words in a country where women are widely
and creditably established as book-keepers, and where
they hold classes to instruct others in accounts! She
tells us that more than one-half of English women
are obliged to provide for themselves; and gives a
noble example of two young women, who, on their
father's death, continued to carry on a disagreeable
business, to keep books, manage stock, and control
agents. The\' sustained a delicate mother in ease,
and never once compromised their womanhood.
What became of the womanly unfitness for letters
and accounts in that case? She speaks of the con-
temptible and unwomanly habit of beating do\^'n,
and says that men are less prone to it than women.
Who keeps the purse-strings of a family? Who
condemn women to the practical ignorance which
makes them too uncertain of values to turn at once
from a manifest overcharge?

But, sadder still, this woman brings against her
sex the two grave charges of common falsehood and
disloyalty in friendship. We may pity her for a
social experience which seems to her to justify the
statement ; but let us never repeat the libel. Let Mar-
garet Fuller answer it, not only by a life of radiant
truth, but by the words in which she speaks of the
honor of which young hearts are capable, and the
secret of her own young life voluntarily kept by
forty girls.

In her chapter on ''Lost Women," Miss Muloch

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 125

does grateful service when she draws attention to
those who choose to dwell in the very gutters of idle
gossip and filthy scandal, who soil their lips and
tongues while they take selfishly faithful care of their
reputations. This word needed to be spoken. Bet-
ter for a woman, that she should be a cast-away in a
city refuge, with a mind comparatively pure, than
a w.oman in high society, capable of catching or utter-
ing the vile "double entendre," always on the look-
out for a possible vulgarism, wringing decency out
of human life as if it were only a wet napkin, and
sceptical of the purity and innocence she has not yet
found in her own heart.

In estimating the influences which modify public
opinion concerning women, I am not willing to be
silent concerning the popular idea of love. It is a
common thing to hear it said, with a sort of sneer,
that no man ever died for love, — as if it were a quite
romantic and in nowise rft«creditable thing that many
women should!

Creditable and discreditable elements may enter
into the assumed fact as it regards man; but if he
does not die for love because he more thoroughly
acknowledges his responsibility, keeping God in his
right place above, and his own heart and its idols in
their right place below, then we may drop the un-
womanly sneer, and go and do likewise.

I shall have little hope for woman, till she learns to
feel that to die for love is not so much a pitiful as a
disgraceful thing; that it proves of itself that God

126 THE COLLEGE.

was never to her what he should have been; that life
had no aim so holy as the weak indulgence of a sen-
timent or a passion, or some generous longing for
some duty God did not set before her; that all the
world's work and society's ambition was hidden from
her by a desire for personal happiness, spread like a
film over her moral vision.

No better education do I claim for woman than
her entire self-possession, the ultimate endowment
of all the promise she carries in her nature. "The
great law of culture," says Carlyle, "is. Let each be-
come all that he was created capable of being; expand,
if possible, to his full growth; and show himself in his
own shape and stature, be they what they may." —
"The excellent woman," wTites the Hindoo in Cal-
cutta, "is she who, if the father dies, can be father
and provider to the household."

"Who," says Count Zinzendorf in Germany, —
"who but my wife could have been alternately servant
and mistress without affectation and without pride?
Who could have maintained like her, in a democratic
community, all outward and inward distinctions?
Who, without a murmur, would have met such peril?
Who could have raised such sums of money, and
acquitted them on her own credit?"

To such women I think men will always offer gen-
erous help; and, even if they did not, there are props
of God's own disposing. Let woman once reject the
absurd notion that she was created for happiness, let
her constitute herself instead a creator of it, let her

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 127

accept with joy the fact that this is a working-day
world; then she will no longer strive to escape from
labor, discipline, or sorrow, but will gladly hail each
in its turn as part of God's appointed teaching, a
shadow crossing the sunshine to show that it is bright.
Perhaps such a life is not easy, perhaps many feet
must falter on such a path; but, indicating what I
earnestly believe to be the will and way of God for
us all, I earnestly entreat you to enter and walk
therein. Some words written by John Ruskin upon
Art seem to me to have such force in this connection
as to make it justifiable to quote them.

Speaking of a painter who could only paint the
fair and graceful in landscape, he says: —

'*But such work had, nevertheless, its stern limita-
tions, and marks of everlasting inferiority. Always
soothing and pathetic, it could never be sublime, never
freely nor entrancingly beautiful ; for the man's narrow
spirit could not cast itself freely into any scene. The
calm cheerfulness which shrank from the shadow of
the cypress and the distortion of the olive, could not
enter into the brightness of the sky they pierced, nor
the softness of the bloom they bore. For every sor-
row that his heart turned from, he lost a consolation.
For every fear which he dared not confront, he parted
with a portion of his manliness. The unsceptred
sweep of the storm-clouds, the fair freedom of glancing
shower and flickering sunbeam, sunk into sweet recti-
tudes and decent formalisms; and, before eyes that
refused to be dazzled or darkened^ the hours of sunset

128 THE COLLEGE.

wreathed their rays unheeded, and the mists of the
Apennines spread their blue veils in vain."

Imagine these words written metaphorically of your
own inner lives, and accept the lesson they convey.
Be earnest to inherit the whole of human life. Insist
on turning the golden shield, till you have, not merely
the iron lining full in view, but whatsoever Medusa's
head the Divine hand has traced thereon.

See how many women have excelled in literature
and art, in philosophy and science, within the present
century. Their literary contributions owe their popu-
larity to intrinsic excellence: they have sought and
found the light of da}', without the j)ompous recom-
mendations of institutions, or the forced encourage-
ment of a clique. There is no limit to womanly
attainment, other than the force of womanly desire.
Bih6ron, destined to become an anatomist, becomes
one, whether the college of dissectors smile or frown.
Wittcmbach, versed alike in the mysteries of ancient
tongues and modern physics, becomes the counsellor
of the wisest men of her time, ^vithout neglecting her
pantry or her needle. There is no excuse for neglecting
any home duty for the most desirable foreign pursuit.
Let buttons and shirt-bosoms have their day, the
lexicon or grammar its own also. Let the dinner-table
be carefully spread; the food, not only well cooked, but
gracefully laid, — before we seek the more precious
nutriment of culture: and this, not so much because
any one has a right to say it shall be so, as out of our
own tender regard to the needs of others, and a desire,

LIVES THAT HAVE MODIFIED PUBLIC OPINION. 129

through every possible self-sacrifice, to make the com-
mon road easier, and turn recreant public opinion to its
proper vent. Let a neatness as exquisite, as womanly
and as polished as that of Charlotte Bronte, pervade
not only our homes, but consecrate our own personal
appearance; then may we safely wear the livery of
schools. It may be double-dyed in indigo; yet, with
this accessory, no man will assert that it is unbecom-
ing, no woman have need to comfort her own igno-
rance by an unsisterly sneer.

If God intends woman to walk side by side with
man wherever he sees fit to go, the movement now
beginning must materially develop civilization. Finer
elements will be poured into the molten metal of
society; and, when the next cast is taken, we shall see
sharper edges, bolder reliefs, and a finer lining, than
we have been wont. Nor shall we miss the gentler
graces. The classical world bitterly mourned the
young and gifted lecturer, Olympia Morata; but not
with the broken-hearted agony of the husband whose
strength and life she had always been. Clotilda
Tambroni was crowned, not only with the laurels of
a Greek professorship, but with modesty and every
virtue.

It was the tender appreciation of the women of
Bologna that erected a stately monument to Laura
Veratti.

In England, a woman writes admirable tales to
endow a bishopric in a distant land. In our country,
it was a pleasant omen, that the woman who first

18

130 THE COLLEGE.

made literature a profession was urged to it, neither
by scholarly taste nor an eccentric ambition, but to
fulfil a mother's duty to four orphan children. Her
literary career is not yet closed; and, though not lofty
in its range, has been steadily pursued, and deserves
the regard which it has won.

The names of Sedgwick, Sigoumey, Kirkland, and
Child suggest womanly excellences first of all. Let
us pay the debt we owe these women, by following
hopefully in the paths they have opened, till we create
a public opinion without reproach.

" If I speak untenderly,
This evening, my belovM, pardon it;
And comprehend me, that I loved you so,
I set you on the level of my soul,
And overwashed you with the bitter brine
Of some habitual thought*."

"Alas! long-suffering and most patient God,
Thou need'st be surelier God to bear with us,
Than even to have made us! Beloved, let us love so well
Our works shall stiU be better for our love,
And still our love be sweeter for our work!"

THE MARKET;

OR,

WOMAN'S POSITION AS REGARDS WAGES
AND WORK.

IN THREE LECTURES.

DELIVERED IN BOSTON. NOVEMBER. 1860.

I. — Dbath or Dishonor.
n. — Verify Your Credentials.
in. — "The Opening op the Gates."

And could he find
A woman, in her womanhood, as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang.
The tioain together well might change the world."

"But he never mocks;
For mockery is the fume of little hearts."

"For in those days,
No knight of Arthur^s noblest dealt in scorn;
But if a man were halt or hunched, — in him.
By those whom God had made full-fed and tall.
Scorn was allowed, as part of his defect."

Guinevere, in Idyls of the King.

THE MARKET.

DEATH OR DISHONOR.

"How high, beneficent, sternly inexorable, if forgotten, is the
duty laid, not on women only, but on every creature, in regard
to theee particulars!" — T. Carlyle.

npHE delicate ladies on Beacon Street, who order
'■' their ices and creams flavored with vanilla or
pear-juice, may not know that bituminous coal, rope-
ends, and creosote, furnish a larger proportion of the
piquant seasoning than the blossoming bean or the
orchard-tree; but every man of science does.*

Already the chemist furnishes the attar of Cash-
mere from the heaps of offal that lie rotting by the way.
It is as if God forced man face to face with every
repellent fact of nature, and said, "Slake thy thirst
at this turbid fountain, child of the dust; or the

*"Now that we can produce artificially, and from waste and even noisome
niaterials, the ethereal liquids to which the fragrance of the pear, the pineapple,
and the melon are due, and can manufacture spirits of wine from coal-gas and
oil of vitriol, we can scarcely be overnsanguine as to whatwe shall yet effect as
competitors with living organisms in the production of certain compounds."
— OcoROK WiLOON'a Life of Forbes, p. 129.

fl33]

134 THE MARKET.

purer streams of the hillside shall trickle for thee in
vain."

Somewhat so, I am compelled to turn your eyes to
the most repulsive side of human life. I do not do it
willingly, but of a necessity; not because I like it,
but because it is essential to the argument. May the
contact prove, that the perfumed joy of later years
has disguised itself, for both of us, in the rotting ac-
cumulations of our social life!

It rests with yourselves to decide. These lectures
may be useless; they may fill your minds with pain-
ful details, open hideous vistas, and blind you to the
tempting, heavenward ways which we love to see the
young and beautiful pursue.

But, in such case, the responsibility is not mine.
/ would have you look on vice, that you may learn
to loathe it; / would have you realize, that what a
noble friend of ours has called the ''perishing classes"
are made of men and women like yourselves.

Bidding you trust, to a certain extent, to the truth
of those terrible statistics that crush Thomas Henry
Buckle in their grasp, I would still have you remem-
ber, that, besides the active law of moral and mate-
rial life, there is ever the living God immanent in the
world; and that it is always for you to change the re-
sults of history, at any given era, according to the
great first law, — none the less real because so often
forgotten, — that this living God helps or hinders you
as you will, and becomes, at any moment that you
choose, an important element in each calculation.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 135

The subject at present before us is "Woman's
Claims to Labor."

These claims rest upon three points: —

First, The absolute necessity of bread.

Second, A natural ability, physical and psychical;
and an attraction inherent in the ability.

Third, An absolute want of the moral nature.

Having treated these in turn, I propose to show
you what practical opposition man offers to her ad-
vance; what fault lies in herself; how much more
numerous are the occupations open than is generally
supposed; and what social obstructions have pre-
vented her taking advantage of them.

In this connection, I shall speak of those women
who have opened a way for their sex; and shall offer
to you certain plans of action, by which, it seems to
me, the convenience and the happiness of the em-
ployer and the employed may be materially advanced,
especially as regards our own city. Like a wise child,
who from his fretful pillow takes the pill first, and the
conserve afterwards, I shall open the most painful
branch of my subject in this lecture, and turn from
it as soon as the needed impression has been made.

I ask for woman, then, free, untrammelled access to
all fields of labor; and I ask it, first, on the ground
that she needs to be fed, and that the question which
is at this moment before the great body of working
women is ** death or dishonor:" for lust is a better
paymaster than the mill-owner or the tailor, and econ-
omy never yet shook hands with crime.

136 THE MARKET.

Do you object, that America is free from this alter-
native? I will prove you the contrary within a rod
of your own doorstep.

Do you assert that, if all avenues were thrown
open, it would not increase the quantity of work; and
that there would l)e more laborers in consequence,
and lower wages for all?

Lower wages for some, I reply; but certainly higher
wages for women; and they, too, would be raised to
the rank of partners, and personal ill treatment would
not follow those who had positions and property before
the law.

You offer then a high education in vain till you
add to it the stimulus of a free career. In this lecture,
I undertake to prove to you, that a large majority of
women stand in such relations to their employers,
that they are compelled to death or a life of shame.
Why not choose death, then?

So I asked once of a woman thus pressed to the
wall. "Ah, madam!" she answered, "I chose it long
ago for myself; but what shall I do for my mother
and child?"

The superior has a right to every advantage which
he can lionestly gain, as well as the inferior; but he
has no right to increase any natural difference in his
favor, if he believe it to exist, by laws or customs
which cripple the inferior. If, as political economists
tell us, it is chiefly by man, collectively taken, that the
property of society is created; and if, on that very
ground, man's interest has the first claim to considera-

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 137

tion, — does it not follow, that every friend of woman
will try to induce her to become a capitalist, and open
to her, as her first path to safety, the way to honorable
independence? And, in this connection, I must re-
peat what some of you have often heard me say, that
a want of respect for labor, and a want of respect for
woman, lies at the bottom of all our difficulties, low
wages included.

I will not admit that the argument of the political
economist has, as yet, any rightful connection with
the price of woman's work. "The price of labor will
always rise or fall," he says, *'as the number of labor-
ers is small or large; and it is because there are too
many women for a few avenues of labor that the
wages are so low." If man believes this, let him help
us to open new avenues, and so reduce the number in
any one. But I claim that he has increased the
natural difference in his own favor, supposing that
there be any such, by laws and customs which cripple
woman; and that his own lust of gain stands in the
way of her daily bread. Just so in hydraulics, men
tell us, that water rises everywhere to the level of its
source; but you may raise it a thousand feet higher
by the aid of your forcing-pump, or drop it from a
siphon a thousand feet below. And a forcing-pump
and a siphon has man imposed upon the natural cur-
rents of labor. If, in my correspondence with em-
ployers last winter, one man told me with pride that
he gave from eight to fifty cents for the making of
pantaloons, including the heaviest doeskins, he forgot

138 THE MARKET.

to tell me what he charged his customers for the same
work. Ah! on those bills, so long unpaid, the eight
cents sometimes rises to thirty, and the fifty cents
always to a dollar or a dollar and twenty-five cents.

The most efficient help this class of work-women
could receive would be the thorough adoption of the
cash system, and the establishment of a large work-
shop in the hands of women consenting to moderate
profits, and superintended by those whose position in
society wojuld win respect for labor. When I said, six
months ago, that ten Beacon-street women, engaged
in honorable work, would do more for this cause
than all the female artists, all the speech-making and
conventions, in the world, I was entirely in earnest.

It is pretty and lady-like, men think, to paint and
chisel: philanthropic young ladies must work for
nothing, like the angels. Let them, when they rise to
angelic spheres; but, here and now, every woman who
works for nothing helps to keep her sister's wages
down, — helps to keep the question of death or dis-
honor perpetually before the women of the slop-shop.

Why? Because she helps to depress the estimate
of woman's ability. What is persistently given for
nothing is ever>^where thought to be worth nothing.
I throw open a door here for some stifled sufferer at
the West End: let her open a clothing establishment,
and employ her own sex; let her make money by it,
and watch for the end. When an Employment Soci-
ety or a Needle-woman's Friend becomes bankrupt in
purse, it is bankrupt in morals and argument as well.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 139

The wheels of the world move on the grooves of good
management, of success. Set these once firmly un-
derneath, and the outcry against our moral Fultons
will be hushed.

In country villages and farming districts, there is
a great deal of harmful competition with the girls of
the slop-shops, which can never be ended until it is
considered respectable for women openly to earn
money. The stitching of wallets, hat-linings, and
shoe-bindings, the more delicate labor on linen collars
and shirt-bosoms, is carried on now not merely by so-
called benevolent societies who want to build churches,
lecture-rooms, and so on, but by rich farmers' wives,
who keep or do not keep servants, in the long, summer
afternoons and winter evenings, because it is work
that can be done privately, and is sought to supply
them with jewelry and dress. If they will not educate
their minds by profitable reading, it is earnestly to be
desired they should work, but openly, for money, and
at such trades as naturally fall to their lot. Herb and
fruit drying, distilling, preserving, pickling, market-
gardening, may yet lay the foundations of ample for-
tune for many a woman. I have passed a summer
amid lovely landscapes, where the women found
neither fruit nor vegetables for their table, but let the
brown earth plead to them in vain; while they stitched,
stitched, stitched the long hours awa>, every broken
needle bearing witness against the broken lives of
women who needed in distant cities, where they stood
homeless and starving, the work, their sisters pil-

140 THE MARKET.

fered, sitting at their ease beside the hearth-stone.
Their ignorance was their excuse. Let it not be ours.

And, first, for a few general statements.

An indispensable requisite for what the Germans
call a ''bread study" is, that, for average talent, it
should command moderate success. *'0f all causes
of prostitution in Paris," says Duch&telet, "and prob-
ably in all great towns, none is so active as the want
of work, or inadequate remuneration. What are the
earning.s of our laundresses, seamstresses, and milli-
ners? Compare the price of labor with the price of
dishonor, and you will cease to be surprised that wo-
men fall. Out of 5,183 prostitutes in Paris, I found
that 2,696 had been driven to the streets by starva-
tion; and 89, to feed starving parents or children.
That is 300 over one-half of the whole number."

"It is well known," writes Miss Craig, in Edin-
burgh, "how brief is the career that our female crimi-
nals run. How they are recruited, it is not hard to
guess in a country' where there are fifty thousand
women working for less than sixpence a day, and a
hundred thousand for less than one shilling."

When, a few years ago, the "Edinburgh Review"
collected the statistics of female labor, it found the
wages about half what were paid to men. But no
reason was assigned for this difference; only, one
master gardener ventured to assert, that women ate
less than men!

An advertisement in London for fifty dressmakers
brought seven hundred applicants to the door of the

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 141

warehouse; and, after long waiting, a police-officer
brought the employer to explain why they could not
all be hired. Sir James Clarke tells us, that the re-
sults of the inquiry into the condition of this class of
women exceeded in horror those of the factory com-
mission. Eighteen hours a day was the allotted time
for work; and nothing but strong coffee enabled them
to ply their needles. Fifteen hundred employers keep
fifteen thousand girls. In driving times, they work all
night. One girl testified that she had worked through
the whole Sunday fifteen times in two years.

The lace makers also work from twelve to twenty
hours; and, in families where a peculiar "knack" is
thought to be transmitted, children are put to this
work from the age of two years. There is no regular
time for food or sleep in certain stages of the manu-
facture; and many of these overworked women be-
come vagrants.

A terrible letter from a Manchester mantle-maker
was lately published, in which she pleads to be per-
mitted to earn twopence an hour, when compelled to
work overtime (that is, over twelve hours a day) ; and
says, pitifully, that, if the present regulations go on,
nothing but death can save her from dishonor.

A Persian traveller, who visited the bazaar in Soho,
was greatly shocked when he found that all those
young women were earning their own living; and
plumed himself on the superior happiness of the
women of his own country. What would he have
said, could he have followed the clerg>'man's daughter.

142 THE MARKET.

as we must do, from a happy home and fine sewing,
down, through all the degradations of the slop-shop,
to the very gutter?

But this is England.

Out of two thousand women who work for their
daily bread in New York, five hundred and thirty-four
receive a dollar a week. **How many men," asks Dr.
Chapin, ''would keep off death and conquer the Devil
on such wages? One woman had to do it by making
caps at two cents each! Think of this, women who
like to buy things cheap: for, if the veil could be lifted
from your eyes, you would see — the angels do see —
on your gay, white dresses many a crimson stain; and
among the dewy flowers with which you wreathe
your hair, the grass that grows on graves!"

Seven thousand eight hundred and fifty ruined
women walk the streets of New York, — five hundred
ordinary omnibus-loads. They are chiefly young
women under twenty, and the average length of
the lives they lead is just four years. Every four
years, then, seven thousand eight hundred and fifty
women are drawn from their homes, many of them
from simple, rural hearths, to meet this fate. What
drives them to it? The want of bread.

Last October, two vagrant women came before a
Liverpool court, who testified that they had been
driven to evil courses by blows, and forced to sup-
port in idleness, by their vice, the father of one, and
the husband of the other.

This statement shocks you: but poor pay strikes

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 143

as heavy a blow as a husband's right arm; and these
seven thousand eight hundred and fifty women in
New York supported hundreds of men in ease, before
they dropped from the seamstress's chair to the curb-
stone and the gutter.*

Tait says that the permanent prostitution of any
city bears a recognized numerical relation to its
means of occupation. You ask for proof.

Out of two thousand cases in the city of New
York, five hundred and twenty-five pleaded destitu-
tion as the cause.

One of the police-officers testified of one girl,
"She struggled hard before she fell; living on bread
and water, and sleeping in station-houses. In three
years, I have known more than fifty such cases."

A young girl of seventeen was left with the care
of a sick, crippled sister. They were left to touch the
very brink of despair. A kindly, fair-faced woman
brought work which saved them from death. More
was promised, on conditions that you can guess;
and the toils so skilfully woven, that the young and
healthy longed for her sister's sickly face and broken
limb to ward off her fate.

* What I mean here will be lutderatood by a reference to Emile Souvestre's
"Philoeophe aoua lee Toite." In a pretty story of two women employed in a
daap-factory. he epeaka of their low wages, and says, that, having worked for
thirty jreare, they had seen ten maatera grow wealthy and retire from busineas,
without having changed, in any degree, their own position.

These claspmakers certainly supported these ten masters and their families
in eaae; and, wonderful to relate, these two did not fall.

An angel, clothed in white, sat on the sepiilchre wherein their hopes wero
buried, all through that thirty years.

144 THE MARKET.

"When a whole day's work brings only a few
pennies," said another to Dr. Sanger, "a smile will
buy me a dinner."

Out of these two thousand women, one thousand
eight hundred and eighty had been brought up "to
do nothing;" but, of all the trades, dressmaking
furnished the largest proportion; and yet you think
you pay your dre.ssmakers well!

Out of the two thousand, all but fifty-one had
been religiously educated.

"It has been shown elsewhere," says Dr. Sanger
"that the public are responsible for this evil, because
they persist in excluding women from many kinds
of employment for which they are fitted, while for
work that is open they receive inadequate compen-
sation. The community are equally re8|X)n8ible for
non-interference with openly acknowledged evils."

Thus far I have spoken of New York. I might
speak to you of Philadelphia and Boston, and tell you
of ruin wrought under my own eyes; of the daughter
of a State-street merchant found in the gutters of To-
ronto years ago; of a daughter whom that wealthy
father dared not deny, when I wrote to him, though he
refused to furnish the bread that would have kept her
from sin. I know how hard it is for a true and good
man to open his eyes to the wickedness and miserj'
near at hand. I have no desire to draw down upon
myself the local wrath of small clothiers and petty
officials. You know what wages are in England:
lot us go thither for our concluding facts.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 145

There are five hundred thousand single women
in England, and one out of every thirteen is a thing
of shame; that is, there are thirty-eight thousand
four hundred and sixty-one women of the town.

Almost none of these women are drawn from do-
mestic service. Many were found in New York
who had lived out for twenty-five cents a week, and
from that dropped to moral death.

You know what to expect from the lot of Eng-
lish dressmakers, mantlemakers, and laceweavers;
but does it not chill you with horror to think that
the class of governesses and private teachers fur-
nishes also a certain number?

There is in London a Governesses' Benevolent
Institution. There were lately before its committee
a hundred and twenty candidates for annuities of a
hundred dollars a >ear. Ninety-nine were unmarried,
eighty-three were literally penniless, all of them were
over fifty years of age, and forty-nine of them
were over sixty.

One woman had labored for twenty-six years,
supporting a mother and five brothers and sisters,
all of whom she had educated at her own expense;
but she had not saved a penny. Three were ruined
by attempting to sustain their fathers in business.
Six had invalid sisters dependent upon them. These
are the histories of pure, untarnished names: fancy
for yourselves the tales told by dishonored lips. The
labors of Mr. Mayhew among this forsaken class of
women are probably familiar by name to you all.

14

146 THE MARKET.

To deepen the impression which 1 wish to make, I
shall quote some of the evidence offered by him in
his letters to the ''Morning Chroncile," and close this
branch of my subject. Eleven thousand women under
twenty are employed in the slop-shops. If their own
words do not touch you, mine, of course, will fail.

1st Case. — "I work from six, a.m., to ten, p.m. In
the best weeks, I clear a dollar and fifty cents; but I
only average seventy-five cents the year round. My
mother is sixty-seven, and seldom gets a day's work.
She scours pots for the publicans at thirty-seven cents
a day, but is otherwise dependent upon me. I was a
good girl when I first went to work, and struggled
hard to keep pure; but 1 had not enough to eat.
Then I took uj) with a young man, turned of twenty,
who said he would make me his lawful wife; but I
hardly cared, so I could feed myself and mother *
Many young girls tempted me, — they were so happy
with enough to eat and drink. Could I have honestly
earned enough for food and clothes, I would never have
gone wrong; no, never. I fought against it to the
last. If I had been born a lady, it would not have
been hard to act like one.^^

2d Case. — ''I earn seventy-five cents a week clear.
My husband has been dead seven years, and I have
buried three children. I was happy so long as he
lived (here she hid her face in a rusty shawl, and burst
into tears). I was always true to him, so help me

* This may strike some readers like the hardihood of willing vice; but it ia
only callousness, born of exposure to hopeless cold and bun^r.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 147

God! I was an honest woman up to the time my
security* died. I swear it. I am glad my children
are dead; for I could not feed them."

3d Case. — "I was an honest woman till my hus-
band died. I can put my hand on my heart, and
swear it. But I was penniless, and a baby to keep.
The world has drove me about so. When I want
clothes, I must go to the streets."

ith Case. — "I am the daughter of a minister of
the gosp>el; and I pledge my word solemnly and sa-
credly, that it was the low price paid for my labor that
drove me to sin. I could only make thirty-four cents
a week at shirts, and should have starved but for the
street. At last, I swore to myself that I would keep
from it for my boy's sake. I had pawned my clothes,
and slept in a shawl and petticoat under a butcher's
shed. I was tr>'ing to get to the workhouse. I had
had no food for two days. My baby's legs froze to my
side, and I sank upon a doorstep. A lady found us,
and would have fed us; but I could not eat. She
rubbed the baby's legs with brandy. That night I
got to the workhouse: but they would not take me in
without an order; so I went back to sin for one
month. It was the last. In my heart I hated it; my
whole nature rebelled at it; and nobody but God

* When a woman wishes to get slop-work, she must find some friend, wha
will either deposit, or become responsible for a sum equal to the value of the
work she is permitted to carry home. This jjerson is called her "security."
The longer she works, the lower she falls; and, on the death of the "secu-
rity," it is often impossible to replace him. The custom does not seem to be
general in this country.

148 THE MARKET.

knows how I struggled to give it up. I pa\\Tied my
only gown more than once."

Look at the frightful calmness of this story: ''They
would not admit me to the workhouse without an
order; so I went back to sin for one mo/j//i." When
this girl told her stor>' to Mr. Mayhew, she had been
eight years at service, honored by her emj)loyers. Her
personal beauty was so great, and the whole story
so romantic, that Mr. Mayhew could hardly V)elieve
that she had come to him of her own accord to save
other women from the .same fate; and he took a day's
journey into the country to confirm the facts. Her
employers spoke in high terms of her honesty, sobri-
ety, industr\ , and modesty. For her child's sake, she
begged him to conceal her name; and she told her
stor>' with her face hidden in her hands, sobbing so
as scarcely to be understood, and the tears dropping
through.

If you do not realize the commonnesji of these trage-
dies, may God help you! Some of you will assert
that all this is neces.sary; that, in this age, a certain
proportion of women must meet this fate; and wall
me up with statistics.

I tell you to bring the battering-ram of a Divine
Love to bear on that wall. You will find, then, that,
just as much as it was decreed that such women
should be, it was decreed that an infinite saving power
should exist, and that you should help to make it
available. You may make these statistics what you
will, not in an hour or a day, but in titne.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 149

Some of you will assert that women capable of
falling thus can hardly be worth saving. I know
there is some wilful vice; I do not desire to blink the
truth: but, among those whom ill-paid labor forces
into sin, there are women nobler and more disinter-
ested than many who remain pure. Look at the
stories I have told you, — women working for their
kindred; a young girl of seventeen ruined to find
bread for a crippled sister. In New York, the thirty-
seven women supporting infirm parents; twenty-nine
providing for nephews and nieces; twenty-three, wid-
ows with the care of young children.

Those of you who have had personal experience of
these women will not need me to tell you that they
never pay low wages. The washerwomen and starch-
ers whom they employ are always well paid and well
treated. They give much in charity to save others, as
they often say, from their fate, and doubtless in the
secret hope that God will permit them thus to atone
for their sin. A few years ago, three young girls lived
together in Glasgow. One of them, the youngest and
frailest, a girl whose story was like that of Mrs. Gas-
kell's " Ruth," had left a rural home for a dressmaker's
workroom. She fell into a decline, and, in her fre-
quent delirium, raved about the bleat of her father's
sheep, the evening cow-bell, and the crowing of the
cock. In her lucid moments, the thought that she
must die in shame convulsed her with agony. The
two remaining girls took counsel. ''There is no hope
for us," they said; "but perhaps God will forgive us

150 THE MARKET.

if we save her. Let us send her into the country, and
work for her till she dies." And so they did, adding
to the reckless wear of their horrid life the toil of the
needlewoman; but, believe me, they never forgot the
dying smile of her they had saved. Did you or I ever
make a sacrifice which would compare with that? It
is painful for me to stand here, and present this sub-
ject; it is, perhaps, painful for you to listen: but,
with such women among the ruined, only cowards, it
seems to me, would refuse to risk all things to save
them.*

* Th<)«e who aro unaccustomed to thia claaa of women will be iccUned to
think that tho aUto of thinxs repreaenti'd in the text haa long passed away.
People who know nothing of the value of money talk a Rreat deal alx>ut "in-
croiiae of waKcs," and are apt to say that any honest woman can now get a
living. Women's wages are at this moment of less value than they were before
the war; and, to confirm the foregoing statements. I add here the statements
of my friend Mrs Corbin. which reach me as I go to press: —

"At a meeting of the Liberal Christian I^eague. held at Rev. Robert CoII>'er'8
church, on Sunday evening, Feb. 3. a report was read by the Chairman of the
Committee on Friendless Women, from which the following is an extract:

Your Committee aime<i (in visiting houses of ill-famej. in Chicago, to find out,
as nearly as possible, the general facts concerning the lives of this class of women.

It was found that {hvse women of pleasure, as they are called, instead of lead-
ing tho idle and luxurious life which many imagine, are, in fact, the most steadily
employed of any class in the community, and have the least available leisure.
Your Committee have never yet visited a house of this kind, 8ta>'ing on the
average half an hour, but they have found male visitors, either there when they
entertnl, or coming in before they left; and thia in the open day. Inquiries
put to the women concerning their hours of leisure developed incidentally the
fact, that it is only at certain times, on certain days, that they can get out; and
then it must be strictly in the prosecution of their calling. The terms on which
these women are kept, are usually a certain stipulated sum per week for room
rent, and over and above thi.s, the half of their earnings; which makes it neces-
sary for the keepers to have a constant eye upon the gifls, to prevent their tak-
ing money outside. The number of men supporting these houses is, moreover,
so much greater than the number of women supported therein, that every girl
is kept in constant requisition, either at the house, or as a walking advertise-
ment on the street and at public places.

Your Committee, before making these visits, were constantly assured that

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 151

In France, where all women of this class are reg-
istered, DuchAtelet found 1,680 who had erased their
names from the list, on the plea that they had found
honest occupation. He traced them: 108 had be-
come housekeepers; 864, seamstresses; 247, shop-
keepers; and 461, domestics.

The Society for the Rescue of Young Women, in
London, admitted two hundred members last year.
It asks no questions of those who enter; and the
wisdom of this is shown in the fact, that its subscrip-
tion-list contains the names of sixty former inmates,

these women preferred this way of life, and would scout the efforts of their own
sex at reforming them. Your Committee take great pleasure in reporting, that,
in every instance, they have found this charge uUerly unsustained. Every-
where doors were freely opened to them; they were treated with as much polite-
ness and cordiality as they have ever received in the most respectable houses;
and the conversation was of the freest and most satisfactory character.

'Are you happy in this life?' was asked of a delicate girl in her teens, who had
been seen, five minute« before, dancing and singing about a man in an adjoining
apartment in the most wanton manner, — 'Are you happy in this life?'

Tears, sudden and sincere, with a look of indignant protest, filled her eyes, as
she answered, —

'Think how we have to treat the men: that of itself is enough to prevent
any vannan from being happy.'

' But you do not always talk this way to* men?' was the reply.

'Oh no!' she said; 'I would never tell a man that. We always tell the men
that we like this life, and would not live any other, if we could; but women know.'

Another voluntarily mentioned the intemperance with which they are uni-
versally and justly charged, as one of the hard necessities of their position.
W<»nen ought not to drink, she admitted; but they would die if they did not,
or go mad with anguish and despair.

Your Committee feel, that, at the present stage of investigation, it may seem
premature to speak of the causes of this terrible evil; this slavery, which their
observation assures them is more degrading and horrible than any other upon
the face of the earth: but two causes have met them so constantly face to face,
that they cannot in justice refrain from mentioning them.

The first is the terribly prevalent and everywhere tolerated licentiousness of
men. Your Committee belieye it to be an admitted fact, that, if to-day every
woman of abandoned life could suddenly be removed from the dens of this city
and placed in a respectable position, it would not be six months before their
places would be filled, from the ranks of women who are now virtuous; and

152 THE MARKET.

whose subscriptions range from twenty-five cents to
twenty dollars per annum.

A terrible account has lately been published of the
straw-bonnet warehouses in London, by one who has
worked in them. One single stor>' will show you,
how that touch of truth, which, far more than the
touch of genius, makes the "whole world kin," re-
vealed a noble human nature in the midst of what
seemed utter depravity.

they have no faith in any systom of reform which doe« not strike effectual blowa
at this, the mainspring of the e\-il.

Over against this, the first great pillar of the institution, stands the almost
equally coloaaal one of poverty, and the exclusion of women from the ordinary
fields of labor.

'Here is what I work for.' said a fine, strong-looking woman, a« she placed
her hand on the hea<l of a bright boy of two years. 'He is my child. I have
him to support. There i« no other way which I could earn a comfortable sub-
sistence for myself and him.'

Another, the kwper of a house of ill-fame, an intelligent, graceful, refined-
looking woman, — a woman who would have l>eon an ornament to any society,
— said: —

'I was left suddenly poor, with my mother to support. I had never been
used to work, and there seemed no work I could do that would support us both.
The circumstances of my life seemed to force me into this way of living;' which
meant, of course, that some man stood ready to offer her kindness, protection,
support, every thing but marriage, and she accepted it. 'My mother, to-day
is as innocent of any knowledge of my way of life, as a saint in heaven. I live
in daily terror and solicitude lest she should find it out, for it would kill her.
I am going soon on a visit to her. and shall carr>- with me twelve hundred and
fifty dollars, with which to secure her a home for life; so that, whatever happens
to me, she will \yc provided for.'

In confirmation of this ston,-, a hack came to the door while she was speaking,
to carry her to the train she had previously indicated; which fact, together with
her earnest and sincere manner, left no doubt in the minds of your Committee
concerning the truthfulness of her story.

In regard to the .«eries of meeting?; proposed to be inaugurated, your Commit-
tee are obliged for the present to report unfavorably, for the following reasons: —

The proposition was everywhere cordially met among the women. They
readily agreetl to the usefulness of the project, and mentioned onlj' one objection,
and that to time. "Sunday," wa* the invariable answer, 'is our busiest day.
We could hanlly get away at all on that day; but we will tr>- to do so.' Your
Committee saw at once the blunder they had made in forgetting that Sunday
is the leisure day of men; and therefore went to the first appointed meeting,

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 153

One day, the worn-out women tried to compel a
young, fresh worker to do less than she was able, or
to secrete a portion of her braid, instead of making it
up. They could not prevail. "Are you a Metherdis,
miss?" asked one woman. "I'm not a thief," she
replied gently. A big, bad woman stole her extra
plait; but no one dared insult her. Once she fainted,
and some one offered her gin; but the big, bad wo-
man started forward: "Would you make her a devil
like the rest of us?" she cried; "I'd sooner see her

through a ooM and blinding snowBtonn, with little hope of success. They found
the room already occupied by some six or eight street roughs, evidently waiting
for what might transpire. They left the room very soon, but took their sta-
tion about the door, and remained there as long as the Committee did. Sub-
sequent inqtiirea confirmed the impression, that they were sent there by some ol
the men who had been in the houses at the time of the visits, to break up the
meetings, for which purpose, of course, only their presence would be necessary.

Bej'ond this determined opposition which would no doubt be encoiutered
at the hands of the male supporters of the institution, your Committee see
but one serious diflSculty ; and that is, the deep-rooted scepticism which prevail
among the women concerning any general sentiment of Christian charity in
their behalf. They have so long been persecuted with unjust opprobrium,
abandoned, outcast, left to live or die as they might, without one word of pity
or encouragement, while the men who shared their sins, and were oftentimes
the guiltier partners, were the honored and trusted associates of Christian
women, pillars perhaps in Christian churches, that they have naturally come to
feel, that the sympathy of one or two good women, however earnest and grate-
ful it may be in it4»lf. will be of little avail against the malignity of the whole
banded world.

Still your Committee have seen nothing, so far, to discourage them in their

efforts, but every thing to impress upon them the feeling of imperative duty in

this direction. /«. .v «, r^. r^ i^ ^i. •

(Signed) Mrs. C. F. Corbin, Chairman.

"The plan of action proposed by this Committee was to visit the women
in a friendly. Christ-like spirit, inaugurate a series of meetings among them,
organise efforts in the direction of saving their money, so that they might be
able to take an independent position, with only such moral support as should
be necessary to enable them to face the opposition of the world, and to direct
their lavish free-heartedness into channels of benevolence toward the old and
worn-out of their number. Pure and healthful pleasures would also be provided
for them, good music, the reading of fine poems and interesting stories, and so
a beginning made toward introducing principles of steadiness and sobriety into
their now totally abandoned and desperate lives."

154 THE MARKET.

stabbed!" and she got a cup of tea from her
own "screw."* When they were kept late, this wo-
man walked home with her, cautioning her against
gin, against young men, especially the gentry, and bid-
ding her not forget her prayers: "for," said she, '^you
know how; I was never teached." As she parted from
her one night, she said, "I don't expect it's any use;
but it would do no harm if you prayed once for me."
Who will say that this woman was irreclaimable?
And, in estimating the chances of saving a depraved
woman, you should always remember, that, in nine
cases out of twelve, she sold herself, not to vice, but
to what seemed, at least, to her longing heart, like love.
Put yourself in her place. Do not .start: it will do
you no harm. Think what it would be to slave soul
and body, day after day, for a crust and a cup of cold
water. Not so much would your failing body crave
one nourishing meal, as the aching, human heart
within you one tender look, one loving word. If, in
your misery, you had kept some l)eauty; if you had
known no gentler touch than a drunken father's blow
or a mother's curse, — how strong would be the
temptation when one above you pleaded for affection!
See how like an angel of light this demon would
descend! O my sisters! you have never read this
story right. Such a woman is no monster, only a
gentle-hearted creature, unsupported by God's law,
unrestrained bv self-control. Your scorn, the world's

* This expreasion, used in all such places to denote the food, tea , coffee, or
gin, used by the overstrained girls, is terribly significant.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 155

rejection, may make her what you think. Meanwhile,
are you above temptation? Does not conscience en-
force my plea?

"Some positions," says Legouv^, "attract by their
ease; but it is work that purifies and fills existence.
God permits hard trials; but he has appointed labor,
and we forget them all. A serious comforter, it gives
always more than it promises, and dries the bitterest
tears. A pleasure unequalled in itself, it is the salt
of all other pleasures."*

You have seen that a necessity to live demands
of you new fields for woman to work in; and the
question arises, Is she fit for these new duties?t

I consider the question of intellectual ability settled.

* I do not know that any person has ever practically carried out Legouvd's
eatimate of labor as a moral help, but Marie de Lamourous, the foundress of
the House of Mercy at Bordeaux. This was a refuge for ruined women, whom
ahe trained to self-support. Some one offered her a sum sufficient to insure her
family a comfortable living: but she wisely refused it. "No false pretences,"
she said: "if we are not compelled to labor, we shall not labor. An idle mind
makes its own temptations. I can do nothing without work."

t When woman's power to work is called in question, men almost always
remark, that she has shown no inventive genius whatever. Should a proper
history of the arts ever be written, this will be foimd to be an entire misUke.
Patentees are not always inventors; and many of these, after hopeless labor
carried on for years, have owed a final success to some woman's power of adap-
tation. We need not, however, take refuge in general statement, nor in the
traditional fact that she invented spindle, distaff, needle, and scissors. Any
new-bom barbarian, pressed by necessity, might accomplish so much. The
most delicate and beautiful obstetrical instruments were invented by Madame
Boivin. Madame Ducoudray invented the manikin; Madame Breton, the
system of artificial nourishment for babes; Morandi and Biheron adapted wax
to the purposes of medical illustration; and it was to the observations of Mad-
emoiselle Biheron, recorded in wax, that Dr. Hunter owed the illustrations of
his best work. He was her generous friend; but she precedes him seven years

156 THE MARKET.

The volumes of science, mathematics, general litera-
ture, &c., which women have given to the world,
without sharing to the full the educational advan-
tages of man, seem to promise that they shall out-
strip him here, the moment they have a fair start.
But I go farther, and state boldly, that women
have, from the beginning, done the hardest and
most unwholesome work of the world in all coun-
tries, whether civilized or uncivilized; and I am pre-
pared to prove it. I do not mean that rocking the
cradle and making l>read is as hard work as any,
but that women have always been doing man's
work, and that all the outcr>' society makes against
work for women is not to protect women, but a

in this tlin-ction. ami may potwibly havi> given him the right to uae her obaerva-
tions a« his own. Madamo Hondet has, in the present centur>', invented a
tul>e to be useti in cast's of restoration from asphyxia. It is easy to quote these
oases from the historj- of mwlicine, l)erause an honest Frenrh physician has
taken pains to preserve them; but the following inBtanccs of inventive and
mechanical power may be less known

In 1823, the firtt patrfil of iurrfitiou was taken out in Paris by Madame Dutillet,
for the formation of artificial marble. Thix wiis so successful a patent, that
she sold it in 1S24: and the purchaser renewetl it, with still further improvements.

In \S'A(\, Hurrows, an Englishman, took out a patent for cement. Madame
Bex, of Paris, found this cement a failure in damp places, and published a
metho<J of less limite<l application, in which bitumen was employed.

In 1840, Mrs. Marshall once of Manchester. England, and now of Edin-
burgh, was struck with the idea, that the electric forces evolved by decaying
animal and vegetable matter, acting upon calcareous substances, must have
much to do with the natural formation of marble. In five years, by upwards
of ten thousand experiments, she perfectetl an artificial marble, whose constit-
uents and manufacture were entirely within control, and which could be made
in hours or months, at the maker's volition. To this cement she gave the simple
Italian name of intonucn. It is singular that she should so intuitively have seized
this secret; for, under Madame Dutillet's patent, we are expressly informed
that all vegetable matter must be removed from the composition, if we would

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 157

certain class called ladies. Now, I believe that work
is good for ladies; so let us look at the truth. ''Let
it once be understood," says one of our English
friends, "that the young business-woman is shielded
by the social intercourse of those who are called
ladies, and it would obviate many of those grave
objections which deter parents from consenting that
their children shall brave the world in shops and
warehouses."

Most certainly it would; and to this point we
must frequently return. Meanwhile, says Sydney
Smith, "so long as girls and boys run about in the
dirt, and trundle hoop together, they are both pre-
cisely alike;" and I shall proceed to show that large
numbers have not only played but worked in the
dirt together, and trundled hoop, not merely through
our own lives, but ever since work and play began.

hmve the cement indestructible. The example is an interesting one; for the
ten thousand disagreeable experiments show that one woman at least possessed
the power of persistent application, of long-protracted labor, so often denied.

Starch first came into use in England in 1564. It was carried thither by a
Mrs. Dinghcn V'andon Plaanc, of Flanders, who set up busint^ss as a professed
starcher, and instructed othcnii how to tise the article for five pounds, and how
to make it for twenty pounds.

Side-saddles for ladies first came into use in 1138. Anne, queen of Richard
II., introduced these to the English ladies.

The braiding of straw in this coimtry was first begun in Providence, in 1708,
b3^**1rs. Betsey Baker, lately residing in Dedham, Mass. The first bonnet
the made was of seven straws with bobbin let in like open-work, and lined
with pink satin.

I had hoped to add to these names that of a peasant woman, who successfully
drained a large estate in France after her own original fashion, and was sent
from Paris to do the same in French Guiana for the government; but, although
no phantom, she eludes my researches.

158 THE MARKET.

I shall speak first of Asiatic women; and I can
afford to begin by quoting a Cochin-China proverb,
to the effect that "a woman has nine lives, and
bears a great deal of killing." I do not know any-
thing else about the Cochin-China women; but this
looks as if their lot were no exception to the gen-
eral rule. The Chinese peasant-woman goes to the
field with her male infant on her back, and ploughs,
sows, and reaps, exposed to all the changes of the
weather. When her husband is proved criminal, she
must die as his accomplice; having, at least, strength
enough to suffer. In Calcutta, women are the ma-
sons who keep the roof tight; and you may see
them daily carrying their hods of cement, spreading
it on the tops of houses, and flattening it with a
wooden rammer like that with which our Irishmen
pave the streets.

You have heard of the Bombay ghauts. Ghaut is
a native word, which means ''passage through;" and
it is applied by the resident not only to the railway
cut between the hills, but to the hills themselves.
These are of volcanic origin, — a sort of trap. Formed
beneath the water, the mass cooled as it was throwTi
up, and the sides do not slope much. "When I
gained an elevation of two thousand feet," says my
correspondent, "and looked back, I saw hills of all
shapes and sizes thrown up, and ravines thousands of
feet below, all looking like the dried bed of an ocean.
The table-land on which I stood is two thousand fivQ
hundred feet above the level of the sea; and, as this is

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 159

the elevation at Poonah, the railroad from Campoolu
winds as it can along the sides of the mountains.
There are twenty-five tunnels through the solid rock
on this road, each half a mile long or more. There
are piers of solid stone, with arches spanning forty
feet, which rise a hundred above the valley. Part of
the grade was formed by lowering men with ropes, to
drill the holes for blasting, a thousand feet above the
ravine. There are twenty thousand workmen em-
ployed; and one-third, or about seven thousand, of
these are" — what do you think? In a country where
no European man can labor, where the native rests
until compelled by his conqueror to work, in the year
1859 behold seven thousand women laboring in the
ghauts! Climbing, climbing, through the cloudless
day, women carry baskets of stone and earth upon their
heads, to creep to the edge of the ravines, and fill with
these tedious contributions thousands of perpendicular
feet; and the men who pay them, doubtless, talk to
their daughters about woman^s lack of physical
strength !

In Australia, the woman carries the burdens which
man's indolence refuses; and the deserts of Africa
bear the same testimony in freedom that we glean
from the witness of slavery. In the West-India
Islands, the patient negress toils by the side of her
mate, doing to the full as hard a day's work, though
encumbered by the weight of a child upon her back;
but she does not share, in the same way, his hours of
rest. The customs of Africa still prevail, and she
offers her husband's food and tobacco on her knees.

160 THE MARKET.

Nor does the poetry of ancient Greece show us the
so-long vaunted delicacy of the sex. Homer's prin-
cesses beat linen on the rocks, and Andromache shares
all the functions of the groom: —

" For this, high fed in plenteous stalls ye stand.
Served nith pure wheat, and by a princess' hand;
For this, my spouse, of great Actax)n's line.
So oft hath steeped the strengthening grain in wine!"

We have crossed the boundarj' line of Europe, \\nth-
out any change in the indications; and we may drop
from Homer to the middle ages, or modern times, as
well.

The traveller who gazes admiringly upon the vine-
clad hills of the Jura, rising terrace upon terrace, till
the eye can scarce distinguish the limit between the
work of man and the rock of ages which still crowns
the summit, will learn with surprise that the mind
which conceived of such stupendous labor, and the
hand which held out honor and freedom as its reward,
were a woman's.

Under a burning sun, or exposed to a bitter, glacial
bise, the first cultivators, partly women, climbed slowly
and painfully, by rocky ledges or crevices, along those
dangerous slopes and beetling cliffs, where trees were
to be hewn down and briers plucked up, raising by
manual efforts alone the stone necessary for the steps
and walls, and the deep tunnels for the safe passage
of the torrents which vegetation now conceals. And
among them, wherever her donkey's foot could find
a way, went the woman who devised the work and

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 161

bestowed the guerdon, with the distaff on her saddle,
which gives her to this day the name of Bertha the
spinner.

Yes, it was Bertha, of the Transjurane, who, about
the middle of the tenth century, undertook this work;
opened the old Roman roads; and, in defending her
people against the Saracen hordes, first devised, it may
be, the modern telegraph. A prolonged line from her
Alps to the Jura is still set with the solid stone towers
from which Bertha's sentinels warned each other.*

On the 13th of April, 1809, the French and Bava-
rian prisoners held by the Tyrolese at Steinach were
marched to Schwatz, and thence to Salzburg, under
an escort of women: and the prisoners, at least, felt
sufficient confidence in the physical strength of the
guard; for they made no attempt to escape.

''Not a year ago," writes Anna Johnson of Ger-
many, "I saw a young girl standing up to her knees
in a manure-heap, which she shovelled into a cart, and
then drove to the field. She was hired to do this work
at fourteen dollars a year. On the mountains, the
women were carrying soil and manure to the vines in
baskets, as Queen Bertha taught them nine centuries
ago." A still less pleasant picture may be drawn
from Kohl's '* Reminiscences of Montenegro." " Down
among the stones, on the banks of the Fuimera," he
says, "some Cattaro women and girls were washing
and scraping the entrails of the goats that the men
had brought to market. There was one tall, slender,

* Historical Picture* of the Middle Ages, in Black and White.
16

162 THE MARKET.

handsome girl, dressed in a crimson petticoat, and
jacket embroidered with gold, and her hair elegantly
fastened with golden pins. A pair of richly wrought
slippers lay on the stone beside her; and she laughed
and talked merrily as she washed and scraped away.
At last, she packed the whole into a tub, and lifted it
on her gayly dressed head to carry home. The next
day was Sunday; and I met her, radiant with beauty
and gold embroidery, on her way to church. I often
met these girls carrying on foot the baggage of the
riding-parties."

In 1850, a clergyman of this city tells me that he
saw women, wearing leathern breast -plates, harnessed
to the canal-boats of the Low Countries, and doing
the work of oxen.

In France, we find the same evidences of out-door
work and physical ability. Galignani tells us, that, in
consequence of the success of a certain Madame Isa-
belle in breaking horses for the Russian Anny, the
French minister of war lately authorized her to pro-
ceed officially before a commission of officers, with
General Rc^gnault de St. Jean d'Angely at their head,
to break some horses for the cavalry. After twenty
days, the animals were so completely broken, that the
minister immediately entered into an arrangement
with her to introduce her system into all the schools
of cavalry in the empire, beginning with that of
Saumur.

Marshal Baraguay d'Hilliers, at Nantes, recently
made a distribution of St. Helena medals to the old

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 163

soldiers of the empire. Among the number was a
woman named Jeanne Louise Antonini, who had
served ten years in the navy, and fifteen in the infantry
where she obtained the rank of non-commissioned offi-
cer in the seventieth regiment of the line. She re-
ceived nine wounds while bravely fighting. " It is not
the coat that makes the man," said our marshal when
he gave the medal.

One of the great celebrities of the Invalides was
buried, very lately, with great pomp. This "old
invalid" was an individual of the softer sex, — the
widow Brulow, — who entered the army, in 1792, as
a soldier in the forty-second regiment of infantry,
authorized to enlist, in spite of her sex, by General
Casabianca. At Fort Gesco, she was promoted to
the rank of sergeant, after being severely wounded in
the encounter which took place. Perceiving that the
troops were getting short of powder, she set out alone
at midnight for Calvi, roused the women of that place
to the number of sixty, and started them off for Gesco,
laden with powder and ammunition, which enabled
the little fort to hold out eight and forty hours longer,
until relief came. A little after, at the siege of Calvi,
the widow Brulow, while in charge of a gun, was so
desperately wounded that she was forced to renounce
her military career; and none other was open to her
but the retirement of the Invalides, where she was
admitted with the rank of sub-lieutenant. The pres-
ent emperor, to whom the widow Brulow was intro-
duced on his visit to the Invalides, presented her with

164 THE MARKET.

the cross of the Legion of Honor and the medal of
St. Helena; her comrades, by acchimation, having
designated her as most worthy of the honor. By a
decree, dated from the imperial headquarters, since
our first edition was printed, we learn that the race
of heroines is not extinct; for two other women, by
that decree, obtained the military medal for their
courage at the battle of Magenta.

There recently died, at Portsea, in England, a
woman, ninety years of age, named Nellie Giles. She
was one of the few surviving witnesses of the battle
of the Nile; having been on board His Majesty's ship
"Bellerophon," in the command of Captain Darby,
and in all subsequent engagements under Nelson.
During the action of the Nile, she was surrounded
by heaps of slain and wounded; and she nursed the
latter tenderly, undismayed by the horrors of the
scene. Three days after the battle, she gave l)irth to
a son.

The government, in consideration of her great at-
tention to the sick and wounded, and of the assistance
she gave the surgeons, awarded her a gratuity of sev-
enteen pounds a year for her life.

A young patriot, named Francisco Riso, was killed
on April 4, 1862, at Palermo, during a popular demon-
stration which took ])lace before Garibaldi's arrival.
On April 20, his father. Giovanni Riso, sixty years old,
was shot by the Bourbon soldiers, without so much
as the form of a trial. On the very daj' that Gari-
baldi entered Palermo, a young and beautiful nun,

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 165

Ignacia Rise, the sister and daughter of the two Risos
named above, left the convent, and, amidst a shower
of balls and grape-shot, — a cross in one hand, and a
poignard in the other, — placed herself at the head of
Garibaldi's column, crying, '* Down with the Bourbons I
Death to the tyrant! Vengeance!" She kept her place
as long as the fighting lasted; and her courageous
attitude electrified the volunteers. Ever since that
day, the name of Ignacia Riso has been held sacred.
When she passes in the street, the soldiers bow low,
and bless her with the most profound respect. Gari-
baldi himself pays her great attention, and loves her
as if she were his own daughter.

From instances like these, refreshing because they
tell of self-imposed labor and eccentric character, we
turn with less pleasure to the statistics of the facto-
ries. Here men have left to women not only the
worst paid but the most unwholesome work of the
respective mills.

Women, in France, are employed in the manufac-
ture of cotton, silk, and wool. The cotton manufac-
ture compels two processes which are very injurious,
— the beating of the cotton, which brings on a
distressing phthisis; and the preparation, or dress-
ing, which needs a degree of heat not to be endured
after mature age. Both these departments are filled
by women paid at half-prices.

The woollen manufacture compels only one un-
wholesome process, — that of carding; but all the
carders are women at half-wages.

l66

THE MARKET.

In the silk factories, again, there are two un-
wholesome processes entirely carried on by women.
The first is the drawing of the cocoons, where the
hands must be kept constantly in boiling water, and
the odor of the putrefying insects constantly fills the
lungs; the second is carding the floss, the fine lint
of which affects the bronchial tubes. Six out of
every eight women so employed die in a few months.
Healthy young girls ifrom the mountains soon de-
velop tubercular consumption; and, to complete the
dreadful tale, they are kept upon the lowest wages;
being paid only twenty cents where a man would
earn sixty.*

The Anglo-Saxons, says the historian, ''had not
been long settled in England before the more savage
of their traits were softened down. The wife con-
tinued to be regularly purchased by her husband,
and the contract was considered a mere money bar-
gain, long subsequent to the reign of Ethelbert."
And why? Not because love was mercenary; but
because woman was regarded, in the first place, as
a beast of burden, a laborer. In the "Romany
Rye," we are told that the sale of a wife with a
halter round her neck is still a legal (?) transaction in
England. *'It must be done in the cattle-market, as
if she were a mare; all women being considered as
mares by the old English law, and, indeed, called
mares in certain countries where genuine old Eng-
lish law is still preserved."

* Ernest Legouv6.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 167

Such a sale as this was recently completed at
Worcester, and the agreement between the men was
published in the '* Worcester Chronicle."

"Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife Mary
Middleton to Philip Rostins for one shilling and a
quart of ale; and parted wholly and solely for life
never to trouble one another.

"Witness. (Signed) Thomas X Middleton, his mark.
Witness. Mary Middleton, his wife.

Witness. Phiup X Rostins, his mark.

Witness. S. H. Stone, Crown Inn, Friar St."

I have preserved the old expression mare in my
quotation; to indicate, not the degradation to which
women fell, but that it was as a beast of burden
that men regarded her. Several cases of sales, such
as is here referred to, have occurred within a few
years; but this is the only certificate of transfer
that I ever saw. I desire to direct your attention
to the remarkable fact, that, of the three parties to
it, the wife, who was sold, was the only one who could
write her name. The men signed it by a mark.*
"A generation back," says Corbett, "it was a com-
mon thing to see women, half naked, working like
beasts, chained to carts, upon the common roads
of England."

* While these pckpers were preparing for the preaa, the record of another such
sale, in August, 1859. disgraced the English nation. Opposite the brewery,
at Dudley, in Staffordshire, not many miles from Kidderminster and Birming-
ham, a man named Pcnsotte sold his wife, with a halter round her neck, for
•izpenoe. He had previously dragged her — a three weeks' bride — three quar-
ters of a mile in this state. It is intimated in this case, that she was not faithful;
but it is the first time I ever saw such a charge attached to such an accoimt.

168 THE MARKET.

When Lord Ashley's Commission reported, in
1842, five thousand females were at work, more
than a thousand feet below the soil, in the coal-
mines of the north of England. These women were
nearly naked, and drew trucks, in harness, on all-
fours, like beasts of burden. You cannot have for-
gotten the remarkable description of such women
in Disraeli's novel of "The Sibyl."

"They come forth. The plain is covered with
the swarming multitude: bands of stalwart men,
broad-chested and muscular, wet with toil, and black
as the children of the tropics; troops of youth, alas!
of both sexes, though neither their raiment nor their
language indicates the difference. All are clad in
male attire, and oaths that men might shudder to
hear issue from lips born to breathe words of sweet-
ness. Yet these are to be, some are, the mothers
of England! Can we wonder at the hideous coarse-
ness of their language, when we remember the savage
rudeness of their lives? Naked to the waist, an iron
chain fastened to a belt of leather runs between
their legs, clad in canvas; while, on hands and feet,
an English girl, for twelve, sometimes for sixteen,

Americans arc anxious to understand this outrage. Is it possible that a govern-
ment which forbids the sale of a negro cannot forbid the sale of a Saxon wife?
What shadow of law sustains the custom? Is the woman supposed to be sold
into wifehooti or servitude? I have taken it for granted that the word "mare"
shows that she is regarded as a beast of burden. It is impossible for the fairest
and loftiest woman in England — nay, for Victoria herself — not to suffer, in
some degree, from the public opinion which such transactions, ever so rarely
occurring, tend to form.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 169

hours a day, hauls and hurries tubs of coal alon^
subterranean roads, dark, precipitous, and plashy."
These women, called free, were the wretched slaves
of capital. In the life of Stephenson, the railway
engineer, you will find a further account of them,
and may read the chilling answer given by a woman
whom he asked if she had ever heard of Jesus,
"that no such hand had ever worked in her shaft! '*
Let the proprietors of English mines remember!
No such hand did ever work in those shafts, yet they
called themselves Christian men! True as death
were the words. If the law is now free of reproach,
the evil has by no means ceased to exist: the Master
still stands knocking.

"Children," wrote Lord Ashley, "are taken to
work when only four years old, girls as well as boys.
Dragging the coal carriages requires the whole strength
of either sex. Young men and women, married
women and married men, work together through the
same number of hours, almost, sometimes quite,
naked, constantly demoralizing each other. It stints
their growth and cripples their limbs." In the east
of Scotland, they still toil up steep ladders from the
shafts.

If it were my purpose to show you moral degrada-
tion, you could hardly bear what I must say; but I
desire only, at this moment, to show you these men
and women working, as Sydney Smith would say, in
the dirt together. In 1842, the Earl of Durham knew
of this; and he and the set with whom he lived

170 THE MARKET.

dared, doubtless, to whisper to the ladies in their
halls, that women were not made to labor!

In the calico-mills, girls grind and mix the colors.
They are called teerers. They begin at five years of
age, and labor twelve hours a day, sometimes six-
teen; and are kept late into the night to prepare for
the following day.

In Sedgely and Warrington, the fate of the female
pinmakers is no better. They begin at five years of
age, and work from twelve to sixteen hours a day.
If refractory, they are struck at Wiltenhall with strap,
stick, hammer, or file, in spite of the delicacy of the
sex. In Sedgely, more women are employed than
men; but they do not fare any better: their bodies
are seamed by blows given M^-ith bars of burning
iron.

0 my sisters! why has God sheltered us in quiet
homes? What have we done to deserve a happier
fate? Why were we not left to writhe beneath
the blows of the smith, or the outrage of a market-
sale?

Because God has laid do\vn a responsibility by the
side of every privilege, and requires us to labor not
merely to set such women free, but to establish a
freedom and security by law, — the law of custom as
well as the law of courts, which we only possess
through usurpation or indulgence.

1 will not leave these English shores without allud-
ing to the physical strength shown by that lovely
paralytic, Anna Gurney. Deprived of the use of her

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 171

limbs in very early life, she acquired the Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew, and finally the Teutonic tongues, with a
facility and thoroughness that her Anglo-Saxon trans-
lations show. Men might be excused if they shel-
tered from contact with the world this infirm creature,
dependent upon artificial aid for every movement; but
what did she choose for herself?

In 1825, after her mother's death, she went to live
at Northrepps. At her own expense, she procured
one of Manby's apparatus for saving the lives of sea-
men cast upon that dangerous coast; and, in cases
of great urgency and peril, she caused herself to be
carried down to the beach, and, from the sick chair
which she wheeled over the sand, directed every
movement for the rescue and recovery of the half-
drowned men.

Look at the pictures! See that grimy, tangled
woman in harness, straining, in full health, along
the coal-shafts! See, nearer, this lovely cripple, the
Quaker cap folded over her soft, brown hair, her soul
erect and noble, doing the duty of a Grace Darling!
The first labors like the brute beast, the victim of
human misgovemment and heathenish ignorance; the
last chooses for herself a conflict with the storm, and
earns, with as full right as any brother, the meed of
the world.

Let us pass over to America. The Caribs of
Honduras are a hardy race, and do not share the pre-
judices of Massachusetts on the subject of labor.
Each man has several wives. For each he clears a

172 THE MARKET.

plantation and builds a house. In a year, she has
every kind of breadstuff under cultivation; and hires
creers, which she freights for Truxillo and Belize, her
husband often commanding for her. If her agricul-
tural labors prove too heavy, as a thrifty woman wnll
sometimes make them, she hires her husband to work
for her at two dollars a week.

So the Northern Indian glides nimbly through the
woods; while the squaw carries on her unlucky back
their common food and covering, or perhaps hauls
the canoe acro^ the portage. A Jesuit priest re-
buked an Orinoco woman for infanticide. "I wish
my mother had been brave enough to part with me!"
was her reply. "Our husbands go to hunt; and we
drag after them, one baby at the breast, another on
our back. When we return, we cannot sleep, but
must grind maize all night for their chica. Drunken,
they beat us, or stamp us under foot; and, after
twenty years of such labor, a young wife is brought
home to abuse us and such children as we have not
killed. What ought I to do?"

At Santa Cruz, Theodore Parker writes to Francis
Jackson that men and women work together to repair
the public highway; hoeing the earth into trays, and
throwing it into a cart which they drag and push
together.

In Ohio, last year, about thirty girls w^ent from
farm to farm, hoeing, ploughing, and the like, for
sixty-two and a half cents a day. At Media, in
Pennsylvania, two girls named Miller carry on a farm

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 173

of three hundred acres; raising hay and grain, hiring
labor, but working mostly themselves. These women
are not ignorant: they at one time made meteoro-
logical observations for an association auxiliary to
the Smithsonian Institute. But labor attracts them,
as it would many women if they were not oppressed
by public opinion.

"In New York," writes a late correspondent of the
"Lily," "I saw women performing the most menial
offices, — carrying parcels for grocers, and trunks for
steamboats. They often sweep the crossings in
muddy weather; and I once saw one carrying brick
and mortar for a mason."

During the late terrible destruction of property
at the Lawrence mills, the women, heroic in every
department, did not excuse themselves from the sever-
est labor. When, after hours of extreme exertion,
the firemen, worn down and quite exhausted, called
for help, a bevy of ladies, who were standing on the
sidewalk in Canal Street, flew over to the engines,
and, "manning" the brakes, worked the machine,
amid the cheers of the firemen.

You know what bodily strength and nervous energy
carried Mary Patton round Cape Horn. Well, on the
25th of June, 1858, the British ship "Grotto" left
Cuba; and, on the second day, the yellow-fever broke
out in the worst form. Seven days after, so many
had died, that there remained only the captain, his
wife, and two of the crew. Then the captain was
taken ill; and, beside nursing him, the poor wife, who

174 THE MARKET.

had already nursed officers and men, took her station
at the wheel, and steered by his instructions for
Sandy Hook. There the steam-tug "Huntress"
found them, the heroic woman at the wheel, the
husband at that moment struggling with death; and,
when they reached New York, three out of eleven,
one of them the suffering wife, survived to tell the
tale,' and show how a woman can work. So com-
mon are such instances becoming, that you have
hardly heard the name of this Mrs. Nichols, for whom
tender charity soon cared.

A mutiny on board the ship "Maria," of New
York, was put down Nov. 10, I860, by the energy
and decision of the wife of the master. Captain
Clark, who, with pistols in her hands, threatened to
shoot one of the mutineers if he did not desist. He
was cowed into submission; and, a signal being
made to the revenue cutter, the mutineers were taken
into custody. The mate would have been killed,
but for the heroic woman's intrepidity.

But all such labor is the result of compulsion, —
comj)ulsion of barbarism, of slavery, of unfair com-
petition, or dire disease. Let us close this branch of
our subject with a picture homely but attractive.
"According to thy request," writes a Quaker friend
from Wilmington, Del., "I send thee some facts con-
cerning Sarah Aim Scofield. Some fifteen years
since, her father became very much involved in debt.
He owed some ten or twelve hundred dollars; having
lost largely l)y working for cotton and woollen mills.

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 175

His business was making spindles and fliers. His
daughter, then just sixteen, proposed to go into her
father's shop and assist him; she being the oldest of
seven children. He accepted her offer, and told me
himself, that, in twelve months, she could finish more
work, and do it better, than any man he had ever
trained for eighteen. She earned fifteen dollars a
week at the rate he then paid other hands. Her
father died. Her two oldest brothers learned the
trade of her, and went away. She has now two
younger sisters in apprenticeship, and a brother four-
teen years of age, all working under her; turning,
polishing, filing, and fitting all kinds of machinery.
I went out to see her last week. She was then mak-
ing water-rams to force streams into barns and houses.
She is also beginning to malce many kinds of carriage-
axles. She is her own draughtsman, and occasionally
does her own forging. To use her own words,
^What any man can do, I can but try at.' She has
a steam-engine, every part of which she understands;
and I know that her work gives entire satisfaction.
When they have steady employment, they clear sixty
dollars a week; and she says she would rather work
at it for her bread, than at sewing for ten times
the money. The truth is, it is a business she is
fond of."

I have shown you that a very large number of wo-
men are compelled to self-support; that the old idea,
that all men support all women, is an absurd fiction;
and, if you require other evidence than mine, you

176 THE MARKET.

may fiad it in the English courts, under the working
of the new Divorce Bill. Nearly all the women who
have applied for divorces have proved that the sub-
sistence of the family depended upon them. Out of
six million of British women over twenty-one years
of age, one-half are industrial in their mode of life,
and more than two millions are self-supporting in
their industry like men. Put this fact fully before
your eyes.

Driven to self-support, you have seen, also, that
low wages and comparatively few and overcrowded
avenues of labor compel women to vicious courses
for their daily bread. The streets of Paris, London,
Edinburgh, New York, and Boston, tell us the same
painful story; and in glaring, crimson letters, rises
everywhere the question, — "Death or dishonor?" I
have shown you that there is encouragement for moral
effort, because these women escape from vice as fast
as they find work to do. " Have they strength for the
conflict," you ask, "or desire to enter such fields?"
Find your answer in what they have done from the
earliest ages, with the foot of Confucius and Vishnu,
of capital and interest, upon their necks. In the
lovely lives of Bertha and Ann Gurney, and the
powerful attraction of Sarah Scofield, you have found
pleasanter pictures whereon to rest your eyes. Let
no man taunt woman with inability to labor, till the
coal-mines and the metal-works, the rotting cocoons
and fuzzing-cards, give up their dead; till he shares
with her, equally at least, the perils of manufactures

DEATH OR DISHONOR. 177

and the press of the market. As partners, they must
test and prove their comparative power.

We must next consider what need woman's moral
aature has of work, and what sort of opposition man
practically offers her.

16

178 The market.

II.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.

"This hurtti most, this . that, after all, we are paid

The worth of our work, perhaps."

E. B. Browning.

T F low wages, by actually starving women and
"*• those dependent, upon them, force many into
vicious courses, so does the want of employment
lower the whole moral tone, and destroy even the
domestic efficiency of those whose minds seek variety
and freedom. More than once have I been to insane
asylums with young girls whom active and acceptable
employment would have saved from mania; and
scores of times have young women of fortune asked
me, ''What can you give me to do?"

And to this question there is, in the present slate
of the public mind, no possible answer. No woman
of rank can find work, if she do not happen to be
philanthropic, literary, or artistic in her taste, without
braving the influence of home, or, what is next dear-
est, the social circle, and earning for herself a position
so conspicuous as to be painful to the most energetic.
The woman who is prepared for all this ,\^1I not ask
anybody what she is to do: she will take her work
into her own hands, and do it.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 179

That was a pleasant time in the history of the
world, when every woman found, in spinning, weav-
ing, and sewing, in the active labor of a small or the
skilful management of a large household, full employ-
ment for time and thought, under the cheering shelter
of a husband's or father's smile. That was a pleasant
time also, when, in the middle English classes, wo-
men worked freely by a husband's side, with more
regard to his interest than heed of the world's talk.
But with the wide intellectual culture that America
has been the first country in the world to offer to
women, individual tastes and wishes must develop in
single women; and all men who value the moral
health of society must aid this development.

There is no greater enemy to body and soul than
idleness, unless it be the absurd public sentiment
which compels to idleness. Thousands and tens of
thousands have fallen victims to it. The woman who
will not labor, rich or honored though she be, bends
her head to the inevitable curse of Heaven.

This curse works in failing health, fading beauty,
broken temper, and weary days. Let her never fancy,
that, being neither wife nor mother, she is exempt
from the law: she cannot balance that decree of God
by the foolish customs of society or the weak objec-
tions of her kindred. Never let her say she does not
need to labor. Disease, depression, moral idiocy, or
inertia, follow on an idle life. He who never rests has
made woman in His image; and health, beauty, force,,
and influence follow on the steps of labor alone.

180 THE MARKET.

I shall not pursue this subject; for it is far easier
for you to think it out, than to gather the facts I wish
to bring before you. Head '' Shirley, " and let the sad-
dest hours of Caroline Helstone's life bear witness
for thousands who never find a vocation. Read the
''Professor," and let its sweet stimulus kindle in you
some appreciation of the joy which mutual labor can
bring to a happy husband and wife.

Sad, indeed, then, is it when man himself represses
a woman's longing for work, whether from false ten-
derness, from a dread of public opinion, a shrinking
from her ultimate independence, or a small personal
jealousy. That he does, in the aggregate and as an
individual, so repress it, is unfortunately matter of
history: it is no invention of an outraged inferior. I
could offer you many private examples of this; but
those that carry proofs of their realit}* with them will,
I fear, seem very familiar. The first consists in the
opposition shown to the attempt of Mr. Bennett to
establish young women as watchmakers. Honorary
Secretary to the Horological Department of the great
Exhibition, he could not help observing the superiority
of the Genevese watches, in cheapness and conve-
nience of carriage. In England, watches are so dear
that only the privileged classes can carry them. It
would be for the interests of the manufacturers, of
course, to be able to compete with the Swiss; but they
were too short-sighted to see it. Finding that twenty
thousand women and girls were employed in Switzer-
land in the manufacture of watches and watchmakers'

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 181

tools, Mr. Bennett undertook to deliver a public lec-
ture on the subject. It was interrupted by hisses, and
broken up like a New- York convention. Three well-
educated women then applied to him to be taught;
but no Englishman could be found to take them. A
Swiss, settled in London, did. They made more
progress in six months than ordinary boys in six years;
but they, as well as their teacher, were so cruelly per-
secuted, that it was found necessary to relinquish the
attempt. My impression is, though I cannot find the
account in print, that a further effort was jiiade on
a more extended scale, something like a school; and
this was resisted by such combined effort on the part
of the trade, that Mr. Bennett and his friends began
to make a stir through the press. The "Edinburgh
Review" mentions a watchmaker's wife who wished
to work with her husband in his special department.
Finding that it could not be done with the consent of
the trade, she undertook, instead, the engraving of the
brass work; but, though working in her own house,
she was at last successful only under the plea that she
had been regularly apprenticed by her father, also in
the business.- She persevered, and taught her two
daughters; and so will many others.

Women in England must certainly make watches;
and the time is not far distant when the men of Cov-
entry will yield to this demand, as they have already
yielded to others. A few years ago, winding silk,
weaving ribbon, and pasting patterns of floss upon
cards, excited the same opposition; but now thou-

182 THE MARKET.

sands of women pursue these employments, and the
men look on as quietly as the grazing cattle in the
fields.

"The first steam factory in Coventry," says the
** Edinburgh Review" for October, 1859, — "a very
small factory, — was burned down during a quarrel
about wages. Then there was an opposition to the
employment of women at the looms. To this day,
one of the lightest and easiest processes in the manu-
facture, which a child might manage, is engrossed by
the men, under heavy penalties."

Fancy a strong man \\nnding silk for a whole day,
or sorting colors in floss! How has he ever degraded
himself to such girls' work?

I need only remind you of the formal petition sent
in at the time of the opening of the School of Design
at Marlborough House, to entreat the Government not
to instruct and aid women, lest the poor, helpless men
should starve! A similar prejudice, much more active
than any in America, prevents English women from
qualifying themselves as physicians. Dr. Spencer, of
Bristol, really educated his daughter as an accou-
cheuse; but the prejudice was so strong that she was
not allowed to practise, and became a governess in-
stead. The same prejudice kept the English Army
suffering for months, while it delayed the departure of
female nurses to the Crimea.

In Staffordshire, women are employed to paint
crockery and china, which they can do with more
taste and grace than men. It seems hardly credible.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 183

that the desire of the men to keep down their wages
should deprive the females of the customary hand-
rest; which would, of course, diminish the fatigue, and
make the pencil-stroke more certain. I am happy to
believe that not an employer in the United States
would submit to this absurd demand; and the result
of any such attempt on the part of workmen would
probably be a general permission to leave. We are,
in this country, much more free from the control of
guilds and unions of various sorts than the people of
England; yet the conduct of our printers furnishes a
fair parallel to these foreign facts. Within a few
years, there have been more than twenty strikes in
printing-offices, consequent upon the employment of
a few women; and the result has generally been an
entire change of hands, masters in America not en-
during dictation.

In August of 1854, the journeymen employed in
the office of the ** Philadelphia Daily Register" left
the office, in high dudgeon, because the publisher had
employed two women as type-setters in a separate
office. They acted in conformity to a resolve of the
Printers' Union, and were permitted to depart. But
this was not all. Threats of personal violence fol-
lowed all who sought the waiting work, and an at-
tempt was made to cut the rope by which the forms
are raised. The result would have been to break up
the type, prevent the issue of the paper, and run the
risk of endangering life. Complaints were lodged
against the printers; and, after a hearing, they were

184 THE MARKET.

each held to bail in six hundred dollars, to answer to
the charge of conspiracy, at the Court of Quarter
Sessions.

About the same time, a printer in the same estab-
lishment with the " Lily, " but working on the *' Home
Visitor, " refused to give some necessary instruction to
a girl employed on the first paper. It was found that
all the hands had signed an agreement never to work
with or instruct a woman! The men, after proper
remonstrance, were dismissed, and their places sup-
plied by four women and three men, who worked har-
moniously together. That was only five years ago,
and now there are hundreds of female printers in
Ohio; and one orphan girl has risen from type-setting
to an editor's chair and a handsome competence.

Jealousy in America sometimes takes a more comi-
cal form. Coming home lately from a Female School
of Design in another city, I expressed some disappoint-
ment at the character of the work and management.
A young man in the room spoke of the impossibility
of a woman's ever learning to design, in terms so
contemptuous that I did not think it worth while to
answer him. Making some inquiries, however, in
private, I found his master had often reproached
him with falling behind the women at the school; so
that personal pique had more to do with the whole
thing than any real experience.*

* When I first bogan to lecture, many persons, sincerely int«rMted in my
success, objected to what they called the "antagonistic" tone occasionally
adopted. They thought I ought to take for granted the cheerful co-op>eration

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 185

But, having made these remarks, I must recur to
my previous statement, — ^that, in the main, no jeal-
ousy of cliques, no legal restrictions, prevent women
from taking their proper place. A want of respect
for woman, and a want of respect for labor, latent
and unacknowledged in the public mind, must be

of the world, and that the woman's cauae was the loser whenever the audience
was reminded of actual difficulties in the way. But it would be hardly worth
while for a woman to enter the desk, only to hedge it in with compromise and
evasion. The simple truth is the "utmost skill" she needs to seek; and no
reform built upon an inaccurate survey can be lasting. Only by telling our
brothers openly what we think of their jealousy can we ever hope to shame
them out of it. That the day of opposition is not passed; that the way of duty
eannot, even in America, be trod in satin slippers, — the following extract, cut
from a weekly paper while I am writing this note, will plainly show: —

"The Pennsylvania Medical Society has exhibited a narrow-mindedness
altogether disgraceful to its members, by adopting a resolution recommending
'the members of the regular profession to withhold from the faculties and grad-
uates of Female Medical Colleges all countenance and support; and that they
cannot, consistently with sound medical tihict, consult or hold professional inter-
course with their professors or alumni.' The Female Medical Colleges of
Pennsylvania, it should be remembered, are strictly allopathic: so we are forced
to conclude, that the objection to them is founded $olelv upon the fact that
they afford the means of education to women. We echo the sentiment of the
'Philadelphia Simday Dispatch:' 'Shame upon the men who, while prating
about their retqiectability. would combine to rob women of the means of sup-
porting themselves and their families! Such infinitesimal littleness cannot
benefit them. The public are ever willing to aid the weak, and support them
against the strong. The war against women cannot be sustained by the public
voice: it will recoil upon and injure those who are so arbitrary and selfish as to
endeavor to interfere with them.' " — Antislavtry Standard, July, 1859.

"The medico-chirurgical school of Lisbon has granted the diploma of phar-
maeimn« to Mesdames Maria Fajardo and Carolina dc Matos, after a legal
examination. These illustrations pharmaceuticaa have a regular knowledge of
their business, and passed a preliminary examination in 1859. 'The Gazette'
does not say if they are religUuse* charged with the management of a private
pharmacy, or whether they are acting as civil pharmaciennea. In one of the
hospiuls of the city is a female dispenser, whose knowledge, accuracy, and care
are said to be reliable and satisfactory."

186 THE MARKET.

overcome before she can do it. The overworked and
ill-paid woman has seized every chance to slight her
work; and an idea has gone abroad, that no slopwork
\vill be fit for sale unless a man inspects it. So New
York and Paris have man-tailors and man-milliners;
and the poor, tempted, stricken girls are brought into
contact, in the pursuit of bread, with the very men
most likely to take advantage of everj' failure. Very
sad stories could be told of work rejected day after
day, on account of pretended faults, till the starving
victim drops at the feet of the treacherous overseer,
only to be trampled, in the end, under those of the
whole town. lulucated, respectal)le women should
have the giving-out and the inspection of woman's
work; })ut educated and respectable women will never
stand in such a position till public opinion teaches
them that all labor is honorable, and that no lady will
ever sit with folded hands. How we rate an idle boy!
how we bear with a dawdling girl! That father
grows impatient whose son does not rise earlj', or
show some desire for employment; but the same man
keeps his daughters in Berlin wool and yellow novels,
and looks to marriage as their salvation, even when
he blushes to be told of it.

To prove this, let me show you that many employ-
ments have been open to a degree not generally ac-
knowledged; and a safe foundation for this assertion
will be found in the census of the United Kingdom
and that of the United States.

It is a singular fact, that there are a great many

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 187

more women in England in business for themselves
than employed as tenders or clerks; while, in America,
the fact, at the present daj% is directly the reverse.

It was not so in the time of the Revolution. Then,
as in France, the men went to the war. Women of
shrewdness and ability managed their husbands' af-
fairs,— the shops and trades of the nation, — and
grew so independent thereby, that even Mrs. John
Adams had to rebuke her husband for the absurd
inequalities of privilege which his new government
sustained. In England, the deficient education of
the lower classes makes it almost impossible for the
women to make change quickly, or keep accounts;
and we smile as we find the ** Edinburgh Review"
gravely contending that woman may master the rule
of three; that, at least, they ought to have a chance
to try: and we can afford to smile; for our public
schools have taught us how much quicker most wo-
men can count than most men. While, therefore, the
want of education has prevented a certain class of
English women from becoming clerks or book-keepers,
the national habits of thrift, and a certain respectable
pride in a family shop or trade, have induced thou-
sands of a superior class to assume, upon a father's or
husband's death, the charge of his establishment, and
so secure a competence for the heirs. This is what
we could wish our women to do. We all know how
frequently the whole social position of a family here
changes with the death of its head. Let our women
prevent this for the future, by cherishing a natural

188 THE MARKET.

ambition to do for their children what the fathers of
those children would have done.

The last census of the United Kingdom shows,
that, while the female population has increased in
such proportion that there are now eight women where
there were seven, there are eight working women where
there were only six; that is, there are more new
workers than new women. There are 1,250,000 wo-
men earning their o\vti bread as independently as any
men. (Jf these, there are —

385,000 employed in Textile manufactures,
40,000 in Metal-works, and
128,418 in Agriculture.

I hope those statements will not seem useless and
superficial to you.

This hour cannot be better employed than in open-
ing to you some of the mysteries of woman's work in
England.

Among the 128,418 women employed in Agricul-
ture, there are 64,000 dairy-women; not women who
tend a single cow for a single family, but women of
muscle, who wield large tubs and heav>' presses, who
turn cheeses and slap butter by the hundred-weight.
Then there are market-gardeners, who not only raise
their stock, but drive it to the touTi for sale; bee-
mistresses and florists, of whom there are many
among the Quakers; flax-producers, who not only
raise the i)retty l)lue-eyed flowers, but l>eat the sili-
cious fibres lipart; and they are followed by hay-

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 189

makers, reapers, and hop-pickers, gracefully garland-
ing the group.

Naturally connected with this first interest of the
soil is the second, or Mining. It is no longer con-
sidered fit for women to work in shafts, though the
need of bread forces many to evade the law. The
census, however, cannot touch them : the seven thou-
sand women it reports as engaged in Mining are
employed in dressing and sorting ore, and as washers
and strainers of clay for the potteries, — heavy and
disagreeable if not unfit work.

The next largest interest is that of the Fisheries.
The Pilchard fishery employs many thousands of
women. Jersey oysters alone employ oyer one thou-
sand. Then come the —

Herring,
Cod,

Whale, and
Lobster fisheries.

The work in connection with the whale fishery con-
sists chiefly in what is done after the cargo is landed.
Apart from the Christie Johnstones, — the aristocrats
of the trade, — the sea nurtures an heroic class, like
Grace Darling, who stand aghast, as she did, when
society rewards a deed of humanity, and cry out in
expostulation, "Why, every girl on the coast would
have done as I did!"
In natural connection with these come th(

Kelp-burners, the
Netters, and the
Bathers,

190 THE MARKET.

or women who manage the bathing machines used

on the coast. Then come two hundred thousand

female servants; of which, hirgest in number, shortest

in life, and, of course, the worst paid, are the general

housemaids, or unhappy servants-of-all-work. Then

come —

Brewers,

Custom-house and Police searchers,

Matrons of jails.

Lighthouse-keepers, and

Pew-openers.

I cannot mention the Matrons of jails, without a sigh,
when I remember, that at our common jail and at
Charlestown there is no proper matron; and sickness,
death, and chil(n)irth meet only with such care as
women detained as witnesses, or inebriates, can offer.
Surely a Christian community' should furnish Chris-
tian, womanly ministrations to its prisoners; and I
would that some noble soul in an able body might
be found to take up this work! Pew^-opening has
never been a trade in this community; but, as there
are signs that it may become so, I advise our women
to keep an eye upon it!

There are in the United Kingdom —

500,000 business-women,
94,000 shoemakers' wives,
27,000 victuallers' wives,
26,(XX) butcheresses,
14,000 milk-women,
10,000 beershop-keepers,

9,000 innkeeprs, and

8,000 hack proprietors.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 191

The difference between the employers and the
employed is shown in the following numbers. There

29;000 shopkeepers, and only
1,742 shopwomen;

since the lower class of English women are seldom
taught writing or accounts.

Telegraphic Reporters, Phonographers, and Rail-
way-clerks, are on the increase. In reporting the
Bright Festival at Manchester last year, the speed
and accuracy of the young women were thought very
remarkable. Six whole columns were transmitted at
the rate of twenty-nine words a minute, almost with-
out mistake, although the subject of the speeches was
political, and so supposed to be beyond their com-
prehension !

Several railways employ women as clerks and
ticket-sellers, and the results are more than satisfac-
tory. Thus far the census; which has not been with-
out its interest, since, in English parlance, shoemaker-
wife means not merely the wife of a shoemaker, but
a wife who shares her husband's labor, or has suc-
ceeded to it on his death. Butcher-wife also means
a woman who can buy and sell stock, pickle meat,
and perhaps drive a cart through the town.

Now for the results of some private letters. When
I spoke of forty thousand Metal-workers, your minds
did not revert, I trust, to those dens at Wiltenhall,
where women have been struck with hammers, files,
and even bars of iron glowing at a white heat.

192 THE MARKET.

Now, at least, let us visit a pleasanter scene. A
man has forged and rolled out the sheet which is soon
to pass for a hundred gross of Gillott's pens; but a
woman cuts and bends and stamps, grinds, splits,
polishes, and packs it, so that her sisters may have
pleasure in the using.

It was at Birmingham that your gold chain was
made. A man's strength drew out the precious wire;
but hundreds of young girls cut it to the required
length, shaped it on a metal die to the required pat-
tern, soldered it invisibly over a jet of gas-light,
ground the facets till they gleamed and polished the
whole length to tempt the gazer's eye. Quiet, dili-
gent, skilful, tidy, they sit; with polished slippers
bobbing along the floor; not quite so healthy as
those who labor on the pens, for the gas and solder
do an unwholesome work. Others burnish the silver
plate, sort needles, paint iron and papier-mach^ trays;
and hundreds more are busy cutting and polishing
screws, — a work mainly in their hands, because
men cannot be trusted with the delicate manipula-
tion.

There is a covered button, my brother, on your
coat. Women cut the metal, the cloth cover, the
paper stuffing, the silk lining; a child piles these in
proper order; and, by one stroke of a magic press,
a woman throws them out a finished button.

One young girl in London began life by designing
for such buttons, till she found that she had a soul
above them, and cheerfully entered an artistic career.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 193

Nail-cutting and hook-and-eye making employ oth-
ers; and, if we take a book into our hand, women
follow us through all the stages of its manufacture.
A woman cut and cleaned the rags, counted the
sheets of paper, and set off the reams; a woman may
have set the types; perhaps some worn-out seamstress
wrote the verses, or a female physician composed the
thesis: a woman rnay print, a woman certainly mil
fold it down and stitch it for the binder. A woman
will engrave on wood its illustrations, or color in her
own home its fine photographs or drawings: at the
very last, her white hand will touch with gleams of
gold its tinted edges or many-hued envelope.

It is women who pack cards and throw off dam-
aged paper. I have not obtained any reliable account
of English female card-makers; but there must be
many. In an old Nuremberg rate-book are the names
of *" Elizabeth and Margaret," Karte7i-mdcherin, re-
ported in 1436 and 1438. Cards were invented in
1361. In about seventy years, therefore, the manu-
facture had passed into woman's hand. In my notes
from the census, I find no mention of wood-engravers:
but, in 1839, Charlotte Nesbit, Marianne Williams,
Mary Byfield, Mary and Elizabeth Clint, held honor-
able positions among English wood-engravers; while,
at the close of the last century, Elizabeth Blackwell
executed botanical plates, and Angelica Kauffman
engraved on steel, to the satisfaction of Sir Joshua
Reynolds. In London, recently, one accomplished fe-
male engraver has turned her steel plates into a

17

194 THE MARKET.

pleasant country-house, which she means to fur-
nish with the proceeds of her deHcate painting on
glass.

A whole volume might be written concerning Eng-
lish female printers. Turning over some old books
the other day in the Antiquarian Rooms at Worces-
ter, I came upon Elizabeth Bathurst's "Truth Vindi-
cated," printed and sold by Mary Hinde, at No. 2 in
George's Yard, Lombard Street, 1774. A little far-
ther along, I found Sophia Hume's "Letters to South
Carolina," printed and sold by Luke Hinde, at the
Bible in George's Yard, Lombard Street, 1752. Good
Quaker books, both of them; and the titlepages told
a pleasant story. Here, at the sign of the Bible,
Luke Hinde carried on his work in 17o2. When he
died, his widow kei)t the establishment open, and
taught her girls to stand at the forms; so, twenty-two
years after (in 1774), the place goes on in her name.
No change; only some dissenting wind has blown
down the Old Bible, and a gilded number two shines
in its stead. It is the history of half the business-
women in England, and a very creditable history for
Mary Hinde.

On those dishes of Liverpool ware are pretty pic-
tures in gray ink. Women took them wet from the
copperplate, and, laying them along the biscuit, car-
ried it to the furnace; there the paper burns away:
while others ])aint and gild, or, with hideous clatter
of blood-stones, polish off the finer ware.

In the next street, hundreds of women make pajier-

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 195

bags and pill-boxes, without wasting a square inch of
material.

Not long ago, two young giris, whose father's clerk-
ship was ill paid, took to making artificial teeth, and
succeeded so well as to obtain constant orders and a
competence. More cheering still: a young servant,
with strong elbows, took to French polishing, and
gave desk and work-box and inlaid cabinet a gloss
that no varnish of man could match. For two or
three years she made contracts with upholsterers, and
kept herself in profitable work: then Cupid pinched
the strong elbows, and she slipped out of permanent
reputation as a cabinetmaker's wife.

In brushmaking, women sort the hair, and set it in
the holes. The delicate, cone-like arrangement of the
badger's hair, in the modem shaving-brush, can be
made only by a woman's hand; and she who has
skill to do it well may ask her own wages.

Then there are glove-cleaners; women who strain
silk, in fluting, across the old-fashioned work-bag or
the parlor-organ front; women who shell pease and
beans at so much a quart, and who make the thou-
sands of baskets for the fruiterer's stall. Passing the
white-lead factory at meal-times, you will see fifty
women file away, whose duty it is to pile the lead for
oxidation; and thousands, very different from these,
sit making artificial flowers, many of them cheap
enough, but others, from their exquisite grace and
naturalness, bringing the artist's own price.

I have purposely dwelt on all these avocations. As

196 THE Market.

you have followed me, has it seemed to you that we
wanted more avenues for manual labor? As many
as you please. We are bound to inherit the whole
earth. But it seems to me that what is most needed
is, first, respect for woman as a laborer, and then
respect for lal)or itself.

When men respect women as human beings, conse-
quently as laborers, they will pay them as good wages
as men; and then uncommon skill or power to work
will be set free from the old forcing-pump and siphon,
and we shall see what women can do. When men
respect labor, — respect it so far, that they hold a
woman honored when she seeks it, — then women of
a higher rank will seek to invest their capital in mer-
cantile experiments: will establish factories or work-
shops; will organize groups of struggling sisters; and
the class that most needs to be helped, the idle rich,
will find happiness and honor, will find help, in offer-
ing opportunities to the lowest.

What the lowest class of women need is active
brains to plan and think for them. There are plenty
of these active brains at the West End, tingling with
neuralgia, hot with idleness, dizzy with waltzing.
Offer a government testimonial to the first girl of
rank who will carry her brains to a market, and you
will see what a throng of aspirants we shall have;
letting it be understood, niind you, that the public
feeling sustains the government testimonial.

Let us ask, then, a few questions about the state
of female labor in the United States. Our census is

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 197

by no means so complete as that of Great Britain;
and our statements will, therefore, be less accurate.

At the close of the Revolution, there were in New
England, and perhaps farther south, many women
conducting large business establishments, and few
females employed as clerks, partly because we were
still English, and had not lost English habits. Men
went to the war or the General Court, and their
wives soon learned to carry on the business upon
which not only the family bread, but the fate of the
nation, depended; while our common schools had
not yet begun to fit women for book-keepers and
clerks.

The Island of Nantucket was, at the close of the
war, a good example of the whole country. Great
destitution existed on the establishment of peace.
The men began the whale fishery with redoubled
energy: some fitted out and others manned the ships;
while the women laid aside distaff and loom to attend
to trade. A very interesting letter from Mrs. Eliza
Barney to Mr. Higginson gives me many particulars.
"Fifty years ago," she says, "all the dry-goods and
groceries were kept by women, who went to Boston
semi-annually to renew their stock. The heroine
of 'Miriam Coffin' was one of the most influential
of our commercial women. She not only traded in
dry-goods and provisions, but fitted vessels for the
merchant service. Since that time, I can recall near
seventy women who have successfully engaged in
commerce, brought up and educated large families,.

198 THE MARKET.

and retired with a competence. It was the influence
of capitalists from the Continent that drove the
Nantucket women out of the trade; and they only
resumed it a few years since, when the California
emigration made it necessary. Five dry-goods and
a few large groceries are now carried on by women,
as also one druggist's shop." Mrs. Gaskell, in her
"Life of Charlotte Bront<5," mentions a woman living
as a druggist, I think, at Haworth; and I have always
been surprised that this business was not left to
women. Our Nantucket druggist is doing well. In
Pennsylvania, the Quaker view of the duties and
rights of women contributed to throw many into
trade at the same period. One lady in Philadelphia
transferred a large wholesale business to two nephews,
and died wealthy. I saw a letter the other day,
which gave an interesting account of two girls who
got permission there to sell a little stock in their
father's shop. One began with sixty-two cents,
which she invested in a dozen tapes. The other had
three dollars. In a few years, they bought their
father out. The little tape-seller married, and carried
her husband eight thousand dollars; while the single
sister kept on till she accumulated twenty thousand
dollars, and took a poor boy into {[^partnership.

I have spoken of English female printers. The
first paper ever issued in Rhode Island was printed
by a brother of Dr. Franklin, at Newport. He died
early, and his widow continued the work. She was
aided by her two daughters, swift and correct com-

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 199

positors. She was made printer to the Colony, and,

in 1745, printed an edition of the laws, in 346 folio

pages. That she found time to do something else,
you may judge from this advertisement: —

"The printer hereof prints linens, calicoes, silk, &c., in figures,
in lively and durable colors, without the offensive smell which
commonly attends linen printed here."

Margaret Draper printed the "Boston News Let-
ter," and was so good a Tory that the English Gov-
ernment pensioned her when the war drove her away.
Clementina Bird edited and printed the "Virginia
Gazette," and Thomas Jefferson wrote for her paper.
Penelope Russell also printed the "Censor," in Bos-
ton, in 1771.

When we record these things, and think how
women are pressing into printing-offices in our time,
it is pleasant to find a generous action to sustain them.
At a recent Printers' Convention held in Springfield,
III., the following resolution was adopted: —

"Whereas, The employment of females in printing-offices as
compositors has, wherever adopted, been found a decided benefit
as regards moral influence and steady work, and also as offering
better wages to a deserving class; therefore, be it —

"Resolved, That this Association recommends to its members
the employment of females whenever practicable."

Mrs. Barney tells us that failures were very un-
common in Nantucket while women managed the
business; and some of the largest and safest fortunes
in Boston were founded by women, one of whom, I

200 THE MARKET.

remember, rode in her own chariot, and kept fifty
thousand dollars in gold in the chimney comer, lest
the banks should not be as cautious in their dealings
as herself. While writing these pages, I have visited
such a woman, still living in Prince Street, at the age
of ninety-five. Her name is Hillman. She lived for
sixty-four years in the same house, and made her
property by a large grocery business, and speculations
on a strip of real estate. Her father, Mr. William
Haggo, was a nautical-instrument maker; and she has
a very remarkable head, and as conservative a horror
of modern changes — steam-bakeries, for instance —
as any of you could wish.* Some of you will remem-
ber the two sisters Johnson, who, for more than half
a century, kept a crockery-shop on Hanover Street,
and separated about two years ago, — one sister
to retire on her earnings; the other to rest in a quiet
grave, at the age of fourscore. The spirit of modern
improvement has since seized hold of the old shop.

It was one of the most distinguished of our fe-
male merchants — Martha Buckminster Curtis — who
planted, in Framingham, the first potatoes ever set in
New England; and you will start to hear that our
dear and honored friend Ann Bent entered on her
business career so long ago as 1784, at the age of six-

* I first saw Mrs. Hillman the day after the destruction of the steam-bakery
at the North End. She was sitting up, reading the account of it, without glasses^
and eloquent in behalf of the trade, and against innovations. Since the above
passage was written, she has passed away.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 201

teen. She first entered a crockery-ware and dry-goods
firm; but, at the age of twenty-one, established her-
self in Washington, north of Summer Street, where
we remember her. She soon became the centre of a
happy home, where sisters, cousins, nieces, and young
friends received her affectionate care. The intimacy
which linked her name to that of Mary Ware is fresh
in all our minds. What admirable health she con-
trived to keep we may judge from the fact, that she
dined at one brother's table on Thanksgiving Day for
over fifty years. She was the valued friend of Chan-
ning and Gannett; and her character magnified her
office, ennobled her condition, gave dignity to labor,
and won the love and respect of all the worthy.
Less than two years ago, at the age of ninety, she
left us; but I wished to mention both her and Miss
Kinsley in this connection, because they were the first
women in our society to confer a merchantable value
upon taste.

Instead of importing largely themselves, they bought
of the New- York importers the privilege of selection,
and always took the prettiest and nicest pieces out of
every case. As they paid for this privilege themselves,
80 they charged their customers for it, by asking a
little more on each yard of goods than the common
dealer.

I know nothing for which it is pleasanter to pay
than for taste. When time is precious (and to all
serious people it soon becomes so), it is a comfort to
go to one counter, sure that in ten minutes you can

202 THE MARKET.

purchase what it would take a whole morning to win-
now from the countless shelves of the town.

Scientific pursuits cannot be said to be fairly opened
to women here. The two ladies at work on the
Coast Survey were employed by special favor, and
probably on account of near relationship to the gen-
tleman who had charge of the department of latitudes
and longitudes. Their work is done at home. Some
years ago, Congress made an appropriation for an
American nautical almanac; and Lieut. Davis was
appointed to take charge of it. Three ladies were at
one time employed upon the lunar tables. Lieut.
Davis told one of them that he preferred the women's
work, because it was quite as accurate, and much
more neat, than the men's. In 1854, Maria Mitchell
was employed in computing for this almanac, with
the same salary that would be given to a man. I
may say, in this connection, that a great number of
female clerks have been employed in Washington for
many years. The work has generally been obtained
by women who had lost a husband or a father in the
service of his country; and, I am proud to say, such
women have usually been paid the same wages as
men. During Mr. Fillmore's administration, two
women wrote for the Treasury, on salaries of twelve
hundred and fifteen hundred dollars a year; but the
succeeding administration reformed this abuse, and
very few are now at work.

In 1845, there were employed in the Textile manu-
factures of the United States, 55,828 men and 75,710

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS.

203

women. This proportion, or a still greater prepon-
derance of female labor, — that is, from one-third to
one-half, — appears in all the factory returns. As an
employed class, women seem to be more in number
than men: as employers, they are very few. The
same census reports them as —

Makers of gloves,

Makers of glue,

Workers in gold and silver leaf,

Hair weavers,

Hat and cap makers.

Hose-weavers

Workers in India-rubber,

Lamp-makers,

Laundresses,

Leechers,

Milliners,

Morocco-workers,

Nurses,

Paper-hangers,

Physicians,

Picklers and preservers,
Saddle and harness makers,
Shoemakers,
Soda-room keepers,
Snuff and cigar makers,
Stock and suspender makers,
Truss-makers,
Typers and stereo typers,
Umbrella-makers,
Upholsterers,
Card-makers, and
Grinders of watch crystals.
7,000 women in all.

There is no mention of female wood-engravers,
though we have had such for twenty-five years; and
pupils from the Schools of Design have already
achieved a certain success in this direction. To the
enumeration of the census, I may add, from my own
observation, —

Photographists and daguerro-

typists,
Phonographers,
House and sign painters,
Button-makers,
Fruit-hawkers,

Tobacco-packers,
Paper-box makers.
Embroiderers,
Fur-sewers; and, at the

West,
Reapers and hay-makers.

204

THE MARKET.

In a New Haven clock factory, seven women are
employed among seventy men, on half-wages; and
the manufacturer takes great credit to himself for his
liberality. At Waltham, also, a watch factory has
been lately started, in which many women are em-
ployed.* In the census of the city of Boston for
1845, the various employments of women are thus
given :—

Artificial-flower makers,

Hoard inghousc-keepere,

IJookbinders,

Printers,

Bhink-book makers,

Ik)nnet-(lealers,

Bonnet -makerH,

Workers in straw,

Shoe and boot makers,

Band and fancy box makers,

Brush-niJikers,

Cap-makers,

Clothiers,

Collar-makers,

Comb-makers,

Confectioners,

Corset -dealers.

Corset -makers,

Card-makers,

Professed cooks,

Cork-cutters,

Domestics,

Dress-makers,

Match-makers,

P>inge and tassel makers,

Fur-sewers,

Hair-cloth weavers, and

Map-colorers.

• I do not dwell upon this watch factory in the text, because, although fifty
women are at work with one hundred and fifty men. they are only "tending
machines;" 8o that, although employment is open, a career can hardly be said
to be. The watches made at Waltham by machinery are said to be so superior
to all others, that they are used by preference on the race-courses to time the
horses. Men and women do not compete with each other there; but both are
at service, with a steam-engine for their master.

For the first two months, the women earn two dollars and fifty cents o tcefk;
for the third, three dollars; and, after that, four dollars. The men earn from
five shillings to two dollars a day. It seems that no special skill is required in
the women, while the men in a few departments are still paid according to their
ability. The steam-engine, it appears, has not yet learned how to cook dials!
In this case, the operator must hold the dial, turning it evenly, as if he were a
smoke-stack, which requires judgment and "faculty"!

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 205

I think you cannot fail to see, from this list, how
very imperfect the enumeration is: not a single wash-
erwoman nor charwoman, for one thing, upon it.
Yet here you have the occupations of 4,970 women.
Of these, 4,046 are servants, — a number which has,
at least, doubled since theli; and which leaves only
924 women for all other avocations.

In New York, Mr. Jobson, formerly surgeon-dentist
to Victoria, offers to instruct women in the duties of
a dentist. I do not know that he has a single practis-
ing pupil; but he asserts that some of the most distin-
guished dentists in Europe are women. A few years
since, the town of Ashfield elected two women and
three men to the duties of a School Committee, —
duties for which women are greatly to be preferred.
A letter from the senior lady shows that one of them at
least never attempted to do the actual work to which
she was called, considering it out of her sphere! Does
any one in this audience suppose that those women
felt incapable of the duty? We know better; but
they were not of the stuff of which martyrs are made,
and, deferring to popular views, set aside a sacred
opportunity. They might have so done that work as
to have secured the election of women for ever after.

The occupations of which the census takes no
account may be classed as —

Professions,
Public Offices,
Semi-professions, and
Arts.

206

THE MARKET.

Under the Professions come —

Physicians,

Lawyers,

Ministers,

of which there are increasing numbers.
Under Public Offices we find —

Postmistresses,

Registers of Deeds,

The few calcuhitors at Washington, and

School-committee women at the West.

It is prol)ably known to you all how largely the
rural post-office duties are performed by women;
petty politicians obtaining the appointment, and leav-
ing wives and daughters to do the work. There are
several Registers of Deeds; but I know only one, —
Olive Hose, of Thoniaston, Me. She was elected in
18o3, by 4()1) votes against 205; was officially notified,
and required to give bonds. Her emolument depends
upon fees, and ranges between three and four hundred
dollars ])er annum. She continues to perform the
duties of her office, and, if an exquisitely clear hand-
writing is of service there, will probably never be
displaced.

Under the head of Semi-professions come —

Teachers,
Librarians,
Editors,
Ivcctiirers, and
Matrons.

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 207

Under that of Artists, —

Painters,

Sculptors,

Teachers of Drawing and the like,

Designers,

Engravers,

Public Singers, and

Actresses.

I am sorry to conclude these attempts at statistics
with one reliable estimate, which holds, like a nutshell,
the kernel of this question of female labor.

In 1850, there were engaged in shoemaking, in the
town of Lynn, 3,729 males and 6,412 females, —
nearly twice as many women as men; yet, in the
monthly payment of wages, only half as much money
was paid to women as to men. The three thousand
men received seventy-five thousand dollars a month;
and the six thousand women, thirty-seven thousand
dollars: that is, the women's wages were, on the aver-
age, only one-quarter as much as those of the men.

If we inquire into details, we may find many excep-
tional causes at work, not perceptible at first sight:
still this remarkable fact remains essentially unchanged.

In my first lecture, I showed you that women were
starving, and that vice is a better paymaster than
labor. I showed you the awful falsity of the cry,
**Do not let women work: we will work for them.
They are too tender, too delicate, to bide the rough
usage of the world." I showed you that they were
not only working hard, but had been working at hard

208 THE MARKET.

and unwholesome work, not merely in this century,
but in all centuries since the world began. I showed
you how man himself has turned them back, when
they have entered a well-paid career. Practically,
the command of society to the uneducated class is,
** Marry, stitch, die, or do worse."

Plenty of employments are open to them; but all
are underpaid. They will never be better paid till
women of rank begin to work for mone}-, and so
create a respect for woman's labor; and women of
rank will never do this till American men feel what
all American men profess, — a proper respect for
Labor, as God's own demand upon every human
soul,^ — and so teach American women to feel it.
How often have I heard that every woman willing to
work may find employment! The terrible reverses
of 1837 taught many men in this country that they
were "out of luck:" how absurd, then, this state-
ment with regard to women! One reason why so
many young women are attracted to the Catholic
Church is, that the Catholic Church is a good econo-
mist, and does not tolerate an idle member. In
Catholic countries, — nay, in Protestant, — the gray
hood of the Sister of Charity is as sacred as a crown.

When I think how happy human life might be, if
men and women worked freely together, I lose pa-
tience. Such marriages as I can dream of, — where,
household duties thriftily managed and speedily dis-
charged, the wife assumes some honorable trust, or
finds a noble task for her delicate hands; while the

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 209

husband follows his under separate auspices! Occu-
pied with real service to men and each other, how
happily would they meet at night to discuss the hours
they had lived apart, to help each other's work by
each other's wit, and to draw vital refreshment from
the caresses of their children! It is your distrust, O
men! that prevents your having such homes as poets
fancy. You will not help women to form them.
The sturdy pine pushes through the tightest soil, and
will grow, though nothing more genial than a No-
vember sky bid it welcome; but tender anemones —
wind-flowers, as we call them — must be coaxed
through the loose loam sifted from thousands of au-
tumn leaves, and tremble to the faintest air. Yet are
anemones fairer than the pine, and their lovely blos-
soming a fit reward for Nature's pains. Follow Na-
ture, and offer the encouragement which those you
love best daily need. Do it for your own sakes; for
proper employment will diffuse serenity over the anx-
ious faces you are too apt to see. Do not fancy that
the conventions of society can ever prevail over the
will, it may be the freak, of Nature. That stepdame
is absolute. She set Hercules spinning, and sent
Joan of Arc to Orleans. She taught Mrs. John
Stuart Mill political economy, and Monsieur Ma-
lignon netting and lace-work. She enables women
to bear immense burdens, heat, cold, and frost; she
sets them in the thick of the battle even; while in
South Carolina, and in the heart of Africa, or among
the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, old men croon

18

210 THE MARKET.

over forsaken babes till the milk flows in to their
withered breasts.*

Women want work for all the reasons that men
want it. When they see this, and begin to do it
faithfully, you will respect their work, and pay them
for it. We are all taught that we are the children of
God; only Mohammedans deny their women that
rank: yet we are left without duties, as if such a
thing were possible, — left without work that offers
any adequate end as a stimulus to diligence or ambi-
tion; and, until "Work" becomes man's cry of in-
spiration, woman will never train herself to do her
work well.

It was Margaret Fuller, I think, who wrote of the
Polish heroine, the Countess Emily Plater, "She is
the figure I want for my frontispiece. Short was her
career. Like the Maid of Orleans, she only lived
long enough to verify her credentials, and then passed
from a scene on which she was probably a premature
apparition.'' Ah! that is what all women should do,
— verify their credentials! "Say what you please,"
said a young girl to her lover, as they passed out of
a Woman's Convention; "a woman that can speak
like Lucretia Mott, ought to speak. " And men them-
selves cannot escape from this conviction. The duty
of women, therefore, is to inspire it by doing what-
ever they undertake worthily and well; patient in
waiting for opportunities, prompt to seize, conscien-
tious to profit by them.

* Livingstone's "Africa." Paul Kane's "Travels in the North-west."

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 211

The Sorbonne, which still excludes woman from its
courses and colleges, has formed a separate course,
and now institutes examinations, and distributes di-
plomas for women. The Committee consists of three
of the Inspectors of the University, two Catholic
priests, one Protestant clergyman, and three ladies.

A daughter of the greatest hving French poet
passed the examination lately for the mere honor of
it. Another girl, the daughter of one of the highest
public functionaries, passed the examinations; going
through the winter twilight every morning at five,
that she might not only be permitted to found a
school on her estate, but secure the right to teach in
it. Aware that her rank would befriend her, she con-
cealed her name that she might owe nothing to favor.
That is the right spirit. When a majority, or even a
plurality, of women are capable of it, farewell to lec-
turers and lectures, to conventions, special pleadings,
and the like! The whole harvest will be open, arid
the laborers will come, bringing their sheaves with
them.

In receiving lately a letter from a distinguished
French author, — Madame Sirault, — I was struck
by the following sentence: "Every career from which
woman is steadily repulsed by man is, by this fact
alone, marked with the seal of death. The very re-
pulse stigmatizes it. Man may not be conscious of
what he does; but the career which is too vile for, a
woman to enter has outlived all chance of reform
and must perish with its abuses."

212 THE MARKET.

And, heroic as this statement may seem to you, it
is a simple statement of fact. Can man demand of
woman a higher purity, a more ideal Christian grace,
than the letter of the Scripture, than the spirit of
Christ, demands of man himself? — "Be ye therefore
perfect, as your Father in heaven is also perfect."

That was the clear command laid upon the simple
fishermen, upon Luke the physician and Matthew
the publican, as well as upon Mary and Martha.
The world's eyes are slowly opening to the need of a
pure life in men; and it helps to show men what
they ought to be, when women knock at the doors of
their workshops, and insist on entering.

"What!" says the soldier, "must my sister follow
me to the field to take this blood-stained hand; to see
me decked in the spoils of fallen men; or hunting un-
protected women like a brute beast, till they fall sense-
less on the bodies of those they loved?"

"Shut her out!" cries the minister of state. "Shall
my s^ister see these hands, dripping with blood-money,
bribed by a slave power or a party interest, sign-
ing papers that condemn children yet unborn to the
miseries of hopeless war?"

"Shut her out!" cries the advocate. "I am pre-
paring to defend this man for luring helpless innocence
to the brink of hell, for building up a fortune on
dollars wrung from starving women, for putting a
bullet through his brother because he did not live
a life purer than his own."

"Turn her out!" cries the judge. "She will see

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 213

that my scales are loaded. She heard that railroad
company offer me a bribe. She caught a whisper
just now from the husband of yonder outraged wo-
man. She will hear the liquor dealer's counsel, and
see the golden lure that South Carolina offers when
the fugitive stands at the bar. Turn her out!"

"Turn her out!" says the physician. "Shall she
hear me jeer at what she deems holy? Would you
have her grow shameless also?"

"Shut her out," says the trader, "while I mark my
goods! This spool of cotton is short fifty yards:
mark it two hundred. This yard of muslin was
made at Manchester: sew on the Paris tack. This
shawl was woven in France: label it Cashmere.
Color that cheese with annatto, weigh down that
butter with salt, dilute that rose-water from the spring,
grate up turnip to mix with that horseradish; but
turn that woman out!"

"Turn her out!" cries the priest, last of all.
"Polemics and theology have no charms for her.
She will ask me why I do not do justly and love
mercy. Turn her out!"

"Turn her out!" and, in the shudder which creeps
over him while he speaks, man sees not only how
tender and strong is his love for the sister that hung
on the same m.aternal bosom; but he sees also what
the gospel without and the gospel within demand of
the son no less than the daughter of God.

Farewell to war, to statecraft, to legal tricks, to
shifts of trade; farewell to bribery, to desecration, to

214 THE MARKET.

idle controversy, — when woman enters in to man's
labor!

You feel the doom falling, and strive to put it off.
Not because God has made woman of a diviner
nature; not because he has made her more precious,
to be kept from the rough handling of the worid, —
does it shrink from her pure gaze. No; but because
God himself, in balancing the world's forces, has
blended her moral nature with her mental, purposely
to check her brother's aggressiveness, and moderate
his lust of gain. So has he given to man a cooler
temper, a grander deliberateness, a strength equal to
every strain, which shall repair the fault of her warm
impulses, her "nimble" action, her unfitness, casual
or universal, for long-sustained effort. But what can
either of you do alone? Impulse, tenderness, and
moral promptings, grow into tawdry sentimentalism,
when shut out from their fit arena, when untrained to
emulate a brother's active life. Coolness, forethought,
and strength grow into cunning, rapacity, and tyr-
anny, when uninfluenced by that gentler element of
your nature which God has placed by your side.
Helpsmeet for each other you were ordained: why
hinder and obstruct each other's pathway?

From this moment, put aside ignoble jealousy, inert
sympathy, and stupid indifference to your own moral
position. Only by heartily accepting the sweet juices
and flavors of her life can you secure fragrant blossoms
and precious fruit to your own. The words are just
as true when I turn to counsel her. If ever -this earth

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 215

grows liker heaven, it will be when the broad and
generous sympathies prophesied by this new move-
ment take practical shape, and there are —

"Everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world.
Two in the hberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropped for one, to sound the abyss
Of science, and the secrets of the mind :
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth
Shall bear a double growth of its best souls."

I have often spoken, not only in this lecture, but in
almost every one I have ever given, of the great need
of conscientious, painstaking woman's work. During
the last year, Baron Toermer has been borne by torch-
light to his last home, and the mediaeval artist has been
mourned as a personal friend by many a crowned
head. The torches of the priests who bore him to
his grave very likely startled to the window our two
young countrywomen, who are pursuing sculpture in
the Eternal City. Little did they guess, that, in the
city of Florence, there was living at that moment a
woman as able, as renowned, though, for certain
reasons, not so well known to them, as the great artist
just departed. I will close this lecture with a brief
sketch of F^licie de Fauveau, for whose woman's
work no apology will ever need to be made.

Entering Florence by the Porta Romana, you find
in the Via della Fomace, a dark-green door, which
opens in to a paved court, once the entrance to a
convent. Beyond stretches a cool, quiet garden; and

216 THE MARKET.

all manner of birdcages and dovecotes remind you of
Rosa Bonheur's fondness for pets. Through that
quiet garden, hedged with laurel and cypress, you
might have walked, but a little time ago, with a
shrewd, sagacious, life-loving French woman, an aris-
tocrat and a Legitimist, whose eyes had looked upon
the guillotine, and who was proud of having suffered
for her faith and country. She would lead you to her
small parlor, furnished with ancient hangings, carved
chairs, and gold-grounded Pre-Raphaelite pictures of
great value. Here she would introduce you to her
daughter, F^licie de Fauveau.

A forehead low and broad; soft, brown ey^; an
aquiline nose; a well-cut, well-closed mouth; a flexi-
ble, fine figure; a velvet skirt and jacket of the color
of the "dead leaf;" a velvet cap of the same, drawn
over blonde hair, cut square across the forehead, as in
the picture of Faust, — this is what you see when you
look at the artist; this is what Ary Scheffer painted
and valued so, that no gold would buy the portrait
while he lived. Fire, air, and water are in that or-
ganization: the movements of the arms are angular;
but the hands are soft, white, fine, and royal.

Born in Tuscany, she was early carried to Paris;
whence she removed, when very young, to Limoux,
Bayonne, and Besan9on. A great taste for music
and painting she inherited from her mother. Her
studies were profound, and among them she pursued
archaeology and heraldry. At Besan^on she painted
in oils, but was not satisfied; and from the workmen

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 217

who carved for the churches she got her first hint
towards modelling. When her father died, she was
ready to devote herself to the support of her family.
When people told her it was unbecoming, she drew
herself up: ''Are you ignorant," she asked, ''that an
artist is a gentlewoman?"

Benvenuto Cellini was her prototype; and to her
may be attributed that revival of a taste for mediseval
art which, proceeding from Paris, has had, of late
years, so great an influence on England.

Her first work was a group called "The Abbot."
Encouraged by unlimited praise, she made a basso-
relievo, — containing six figures, and representing
Christina of Sweden in the fatal galley with Monal-
deschi. This was in the last "Exposition des Beaux
Arts," and received the gold medal from Charles X.
in person.

Up to 1830, the young girl remained in Paris. Her
mother was so accomplished, F^licie herself so witty
and profound a talker, that a distinguished circle
gathered round them; among them, Scheffer, Dela-
roche, Giraud. All manner of fine artistic experiments
in modelling and drawing were improvised about
their study-table. There she executed for Count
Pourtalte a bronze lamp of singular beauty. A
bivouac of archangels, armed as knights, were repre-
sented as resting round a watch-fire, where St.
Michael stood sentinel ; round the lamp, in golden
letters, Vaillantj veillant^ — "Brave, but cautious;"
beneath, a stork's foot holds a pebble surrounded by

218 THE MARKET.

beautiful aquatic plants. Many models were lost on
the breaking-up of her Paris studio. She was inces-
santly occupied with commissions for private galle-
ries; she was to have modelled two doors for the
Louvre, and to have superintended the decoration of
a baptistery, — when the Revolution broke up her
calm and studious life. With the celebrated daugh-
ter of the Duras Family, she retired to La Vendue,
and, virtuous and honored, made herself as active,
politically, as the reckless women of the Fronde. To
this day, the peasantry know her as the Demoiselle.
For those who remember her, there will never be
another. Finally came pursuit and capture. After a
long search, the two women were dragged from the
mouth of an oven. F^licie assisted her companion to
escape; was watched more closely in consequence,
and remained seven months in prison at Angers. In
prison she designed a group representing the duel of
the Lord of Jarnac before Henry IL, and a monument
to Louis de Bonnechose. At the close of the seven
months, she returned to her studio at Paris. But
very soon the appearance of the Duchesse de Berri in
La Vendue restored hope to all Royalist hearts, and
F^licie rushed to her side.

"My opinions are dearer to me than my art," she
said, and proved it by heroic sacrifices. On the fail-
ure of this second attempt, she was exiled by the gov-
ernment. In the very teeth of the authorities, she
returned to Paris, broke up her studio, and joined her
mother in Florence, where they have ever since re-

VERIFY YOUR CREDENTIALS. 219

sided, clad, not without significance, in colors of the
fallen leaf. No one but an artist can guess what loss
is involved in the sudden and forcible breaking-up of
an old studio. At the very moment when F^licie and
her mother were all but starving in Florence, a man in
Paris made an almost fabulous fortune by selling
walking-sticks made from designs which she had
sketched during the happy evenings of her girlhood.
The Fauveaus would not accept a dollar from the
party they had served; and Madame had as much
pride as her daughter in establishing the new studio.
F^licie wrote, **We have manna, but only on condi-
tion that we save none for the morrow."

In her studio you find no Pagan traces, only Chris-
tian art, — St. Dorothea lifting her lovely hands for the
basket of fruit an angel brings; a Santa Reparata,
perfect in terra-cotta; exquisite mirror-frames of
wood, bronze, and silver. She has executed for Count
Zichy an Hungarian costume, a collar, belt, sword, and
spurs, of finest work. The Empress of Russia has
ordered from her a silver bell. It is decorated by
twenty figures, the servants of a mediaeval house-
hold; who assemble at the call of three stewards,
whose figures form the handle. Round the bell is
blazoned, in Gothic letters, —

"De bon vouloir servir le maltre."
"With good will tx) serve the master."

Beside the crowded labors of twenty-five years,
F61icie has studied the merely mechanical portions of
her art, and tried to discover some old artistic secrets.

220 THE MARKET.

To cast a s.atue whole, so as to require no after-
touch of the chisel, has been her lifelong endeavor.
She finally succeeded in her St. Michael, though not
till it had been recast seven times. It is probable her
experiments led the way for those by which Crawford
succeeded in casting his Beethoven. I cannot tell
how many of you have heard of F^licie de Fauveau.
The fact that her works are chiefly in private galleries
and her own studio, screens her from observation.
The higher dignitaries of the church and the princes
of art are almost her only companions. She works
constantly. About a year since, the death of her de-
voted mother drew the veil still closer round her daily
life; but I retrace her story with honorable pride.

F^licie de Fauveau is not merely an artist. She is
the first artist in the world, in her peculiar walk. As
a worker in jewels, bronze, gold, and silver, as a de-
signer of monuments and mediaeval furniture, she
stands without approach.

"Witness that she who did these things was bom
To do them; claims her license in her work."

So let all women claim it.

221

III.

"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."

"If such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never
come; heroic purity of heart and of eye, noble, pious valor to
amend us and the age of bronze and lacquer, — how caii they
ever come?" — T. Carlyle.

"^T^O destroy daughters is to make war upon
* Heaven's harmony. The more daughters you
drown, the more daughters you will have; and never
was it known that the drowning of daughters led to
the birth of sons."

This passage from the treatise of Kwei Chunk Fu
upon Infanticide may be translated so as to apply
to every Christian nation. The Chinese are not
the only people who drown daughters. England,
France, and America, the three leading intelligences
of the world, are busy at it this moment. The cold,
pure wave of the Pacific is a sweeter draught than
that social flood of corruption and depression which,
like a hideous quicksand, buries your sisters out of
your sight. "The more daughters you drown, the
more daughters you will have." Most certainly; and
ifi^ instead of the word "daughters," you insert the
words "weak and useless members of society," —
which is what the Chinese mean by it, — you will see
that Kwei Fu is right. Let women starve; let them
sink into untold depths of horror, without one effort

222 THE MARKET.

to save them; and, for every woman so lost, two
shall be born to inherit her fate.

Nor need the careless and ignorant man of wealth
fancy that his own daughters shall escape while he
continues heartlessly indifferent, though he never act-
ively wronged a human creature. When the spoiler
is abroad, he does not pause to choose his victims.
The fairest and most innocent may be the first struck
down; for human passions find their fitting type in
the persecuted beast of the forest. It is not the hun-
ter alone who feels his teeth and talons, but the first
human flesh his lawless members seize.

If these things are so, surely it is our duty to con-
sider well this question of work, to suggest all possible
modes of relief, and, while waiting for the final ap-
plication of absolute principles, to help society for-
ward by all partial measures of amelioration; for only
partial can they be, so long as the present modes of
thought and feeling continue. How little any one
person can contribute toward the solution of our dif-
ficulties, I am well aware; yet I venture to make a
few suggestions.

The ''Edinburgh Review," whether prepared to
recommend female preachers and lecturers or not, does
propose women as teachers of Oratory; and says dis-
tinctly, that, for this purpose, they are to be preferred
to men, as their voices are more penetrating, distinct,
delicate, and correct than those of men. I think it
was a matter of surprise to American audiences, when
w^omen first came forward as public speakers, that, in

223

so large a number of cases, the parlor tone would
reach to the extremity of a large hall. Women, too,
were heard at a disadvantage, because popular curi-
osity compelled them to speak in the largest buildings.
There are a great many women, and there are also a
great many men, whose voices are wholly unfit for
public exigencies; but, when you consider that women
have been wholly untrained so far, how great do their
natural advantages appear! Several female teachers
of elocution in our midst prove that this is gradually
I>erceived. These remarks should be extended so as
to cover all instruction in the pronunciation of lan-
guages. There may be men capable of distinguishing
the delicate shades of sound, so that a woman's voice
can catch them; but such men are rare exceptions to
the common incompetency. The French nasals can-
not be distinguished accurately by a man's voice: the
bass tone is too broad, and the treble wavers in trying
to find the middle rest. Pursue the study of Italian
for years, with the best teacher that Boston can fur-
nish; and, when you first hear a cultivated Italian
woman speak, you will find that you have the whole
thing to learn over again. So there was never any
teacher of the French language equal to Rachel,
whose nimble and fiery tongue never dropped an un-
meaning accent nor tone; nor of the English like
Fanny Kemble, who, despite certain ''stage tricks," in
vogue since the days of Garrick, shows us what deli-
cate shades of meaning lie hidden in the vowel
sounds, and what power a slight variation of a flexible

224 THE MARKET.

voice confers upon a dull passage. The teaching of
oratory and of language, then, should devolve uix)n
woman.

"Why," asks Ernest Legouv^, — "why should not
the immense variety of bureaucrative and administra-
tive employments be given up to women?'* Under
this head would come the business inspection of
hospitals, barracks, prisons, factories, and the like;
and the decision of many sanitary questions. For all
this, woman is far fitter than man. Her eye is quick;
her common sense ready: she sees the consequence in
the cause, and does not need to argue every disputed
point. A shingle missing from the roof is a trifle to
a man; but, the moment a woman sees it, her glance
takes in the stained walls, the dripping curtains, wet
carpets, sympathetic ceilings, damp beds, and very
possibly the colds and illness, which this trifle in-
volves. For this reason, she is a far fitter inspector
of all small abuses than man.

Consider, then, Legouv6's proposition. The pro-
prietor of the London Adelphi advertised, at the
opening of the last season, that his box-openers, check-
takers, and so on, would all be women. Throughout
the whole range of public amusements, there is a
wide field for the employment of girls, which this
single step has thrown open.

Women are so steadily pressing in to the medical
profession, that I have no need to direct your atten-
tion toward it; but I may say, that it is much to be
wished that women should devote themselves to the

225

specialities of that science. Until within a very few
years, a Boston physician has been expected to under-
stand all the ills that flesh is heir to; an eye-doctor
or an ear-doctor or a lung-doctor must necessarily* be
a quack. Women are entering, in medicine, a very
wide field. A few specially gifted may master every
branch of practice; but many will undoubtedly fail,
from the want of inherited habits of hard study, of
transmitted power of investigation. I wish those who
are in danger of this wx)uld apply strenuously to one
branch of practice; and a great success in any one
direction would do more for the general cause than a
thousand competences earned by an ordinary career.
I do not suppose there is a city in the United
States, — and, if not in the United States, then cer-
tainly not in the world, — where, if you asked the
name of the first physician, you would Ije answered
by that of a woman.* I do not complain of this: it
is too soon to expect it. Colleges, schools of anatomy.

*I am happy to find, on the authority of the "London Athencum," that
thia statement waa. when I wrote it, untrue. "Germany," it says, on the 23d
of July. 1859, — "Germany has loet one of her most famed and eminent female
•ebolars. Frau Dr. Heidenreich. nte Von Siebold. died at Darmstadt a fort-
nifht ago. She was bom in 1702, studied the science of midwifery at the Uni-
versities of Gdttingen and Giessen. and took her doctor's degree in 1817; not,
honoru eautd. by favor of the Faculty, but, like any other German student, by
writinx the customary Latin dissertation, as well as by bravely defending, in
public disputation, a number of medical theses. After that, she took up her
permanent abode at Darmstadt, indefatigable in the exercise of her special
branch of science, and universally honored as one of its first living authorities."

"Universally honored as one of its first living authorities," that was what I
was in search of; and French and German papers confirm the statement. Dr.
Heidenreich came of a family highly distinguished in her speciality. It was
ancient and noble: she wm a baroness in her own right. All readers of English

10

226 THE MARKET.

clinical courses, have not yet been thro^vTi open; and
success, so far, has been mastered mainly by original
endowment. Genius has held the torch, and shown

works on midwifery know the authority given to the name of Von Siebold.
Her step-father's brother founded the famous hoepital at Berlin: and one of
his nephews, still living, stands high in medical fame, having written the best
histor>' of midwifery extant.

Rosa Bonheur, also, is as unquestionably at the head of her department as
Sir Edmund I^ndseer. The three pictures Boston has had a chance to see this
autumn ought to fill every woman's boaom with a glow of honest pride.

I can find no better place than this, perhaps, to introduce the following facts,
to which my attention has been directed by the kindness of Miss Mary L. Booth,
of New York.

In the History of Southold, N.Y., — one of the oldest towns in the United
States, — it appears that women have practised there as "doctresses" and "mid-
wives" from the first nettlement of the countr>'. From 1740 to the present
time. — more than one hundred years, — the town of Southold has had a trust-
worthy female physician. The first of these, Elisabeth King, who practised
from 1740 until her death in 1780, attended at the birth of more than one
thousand children.

During this time, — from 1760 to 1775, — a Mrs. Peck was also known in the
same town as an excellent midwife. The direct successor of Mrs. King was,
however, a Mrs. Lucretia Ix-ster, who practised from 1745 to 1779. Of her
my authority says, "She was justly respected as nurse and doctress to the
pains and infirmities incident to her fellow-mortals, eaptcially her own sex;"
a remark which shows she attended both. "She was, during thirty years, con-
spicuous as an angel of mercy; a woman whose price was beyond rubies. It is
said she attended at the birth of thirteen hundred childr<*n. and. of that number,
lost but two."

A Mrs. Susannah Brown practised from 1800 to 1840, and attended at the
birth of fourteen hundred children. From the number of patients these women
must have had, it would seem as if they were sustained by the whole neighbor-
hood. The book just published sfwaks highly of them, as what Henry Ward
Beecher would call a "means of grace," and pleads, from the precedent, for the
education of women to medicine.

Southold is in Suffolk County, on Long Island; and was settled in the early
part of the seventeenth centur>'. It has now three churches, and less than five
thousand inhabitants.

The instance of so creditable a practice being maintained for a whole century,
by three women, stands alone, so far as I know, in this country. Mrs. King
probably studied abroad, and taught her next successor, and possibly Mrs.
Peck, who seems to have assisted both. That three of the four women named
should have practised forty years each, seems very remarkable.

227

the way; but I want women to remember, that, in
this department, all the teachings of nature and expe-
rience show that they are bound to excel men. Let
them, therefore, take the best way to accomplish it.

At the school of Design in New York, the other
day, I pressed upon the observation of the young
wood-engravers the possibility of opening for them-
selves a new career by wood-carving. It is quite
common, in old European museums, to see the stones
of plums and peaches delicately carved by woman's
hand, and set in frames of gold and jewels. Some-
times they are the work of departed saints or cloistered
nuns; and a terrible waste of time they seem to our
modem eyes. Properzia de' Rossi, — whose early
history is so obscure, that no one knows the name of
her parents; while the cities of Bologna and Modena
still dispute the honor of her birth, — Properzia began
her wonderful career by carving on peach stones.
One she decorated with thirty sacred figures, holding
the stone so near the eye as to gain a microscopic
power. On one still in the possession of the Grassi
Family, at Bologna, she chiselled the passion of our
Lord; where twelve figures, gracefully disposed, are
said to glow with characteristic expression. Proper-
zia died a maiden, according to Vasari and the best
manuscript contemporaneous authority; and there
seems to be no ground for the vile stories that have
clustered round her name, other than the fact, that in
her sculpture of Potiphar's wife, finished when she
knew that she was dying, she ventured to cut her

228 THE MARKET.

own likeness. It is not to the carving of cherry-
stones, however, that I would direct the attention of
young women, but to the Swiss carving of paper-
knives, bread-plates, salad-spoons, ornamental figures,
jewel-boxes, and so on. On account of the care
required in transportation, these articles bring large
prices; and I feel quite sure that many an idle girl
might win a pleasant fame through such trifles. No
one will dispute the assertion, who recalls the pranks
of her young classmates at school. Do you remem-
ber the exquisite drawings which once decorated the
kerchiefs, the linen collars and sleeves, of a certain
schoolroom? The sun of the artist set early; but I
have often thought that a free maiden career in the
higher walks of art might have preserved her to us.
The same fancy, displayed in wood-carving, would
have challenged the attention of the world; and the
cherry-stones also bore witness to her power. The
only practical difficulty would spring from the want
of highly seasoned wood; and that could be obviated
by a little patience. Should any young girl be tempted
by my words into this career, I hope she will not give
away her carvings to indifferent friends, but carry
them into the market at once, and let them bring
their price, that she may know her own value, and
that of her work.

Properzia also excelled in engraving: so did Eliza-
betta Sirani in 1660. Her engravings from Guido are
still considered masterpieces. We have female engrav-
ers on wood and steel, and also female lithographers.

229

I want some woman to apply herself to this work,
with such energy and determination as will place her
at the head of it. Let her do this, and she could
soon establish a workshop, and take men and women
into her employ ; standing responsible herself for the
finish of every piece of work marked with her name.
Let some idle woman of wealth offer the capital for
such an experiment, and share some of its adminis-
trative duties. "Success" is the best argument. It
would be possible to organize in Boston, at this mo-
ment, a shop of the best kind, where all the designing
and engraving should be done by women. Why can
it not be tried? Carvers on wood, and engravers then.

I have knowTi several English barbers, — not women
of the decorative art, like our saintly Harriet Ryan;
but women actually capable of shaving a man!
Why, then, does the "Englishwoman's Journal" in-
form us, that, in Normandy and W^estem Africa
there actually are female barbers?

I think there is room in Boston for an establish-
ment of this kind; a place from which a woman
could come to a sick-room to shave the heated head
or cut the beard of the dying; a place where women's
and children's wants could be attended to without
necessary contact with men; and with the absolutely
necessary cleanliness, of which there is not now a
single instance in this city.

When I mentioned wood-carving to women, I was
thinking, in part, of the immense annual demand for
Christmas presents. In this connection, also, I should

230 THE MARKET.

like to direct the attention of our rural women to the
art of preserving and candying fruit. "But that is
nothing new," you will say. "Did not your Massa-
chusetts census for 1845 enumerate certain picklers
and preservers?" Yes; but those women were merely
in the employ of men carr>'ing on large establishments.
What I would suggest is a domestic manufacture to
compete with French candies, and to occupy the
minds of our farmers' wives and daughters, to the
exclusion of shirt-fronts and shoe-binding.

Every one of us, probably, fills more than one
little stocking, on Christmas night, with candied fruit.
If we belong to the "first families," and wish to do
the thing handsomely, this fruit has cost from seventy-
five cents to a dollar a pound; we knowing, all the
while, that better could be produced for half or two-
thirds the money. Last year, I purchased one pound
of the candy, and examined it with practical reference
to this question. Plums, peaches, cherries, apples,
and pears, all tasted alike, and had evidently been
boiled in the same sirup. Apple and quince marma-
lades alone had any flavor. Now, our farmers' daugh-
ters could cook these fruits so as to preserve their
flavor, could candy them and pack them into boxes,
quite as well as the French men; and so a new and
important domestic industry might arise. The experi-
ment would be largely profitable as soon as all risk of
mistake were over; and perishable fruit at a dis-
tance from market could be used in this way. A few
years ago, we had a rare conserve from Constantinople

"the opening of the gates." 231

and Smyrna, called fig-paste. Now we have a mfx-
ture of gum Arabic and flour, flavored with essences;
made for the most part at Westboro', and called by
the same name. Yes, we actually have fig-paste,
spicy with wintergreen and black-birch! Now, what
is to prevent our farmers' daughters from making
this? — ^from putting up fruits in air-tight cans, and
drying a great many kinds of vegetables that cannot
be had now for love or money? Who can get Lima
beans or dried sweet-corn, that does not dry them
from his own garden?

Do not let our medical friends feel too indignant if
I recommend to these same women the manufacture
of pickles. The use of pickles, like the use of wine,
may be a questionable thing; but, like liquors, they
are a large article of trade: and, if we must have
them, why not have them made of wholesome fruit,
in good cider-vinegar, with a touch of the grand-
motherly seasoning that we all remember, rather than
of stinted gherkins, soured by vitriol and greened by
copper? There are many sweet sauces, too, — made
of fruit, stewed with vinegar, spice, and sugar, —
which cannot be obtained in shops, and would meet a
good market. How easy the whole matter is, may be
guessed from this fact, that, sitting once at a Southern
table, — the table of a genial grand-nephew of George
Washington, who bore his name, — I was offered
twenty-five kinds of candied fruit, all made by the
delicate hands of his wife; and seven varieties in
form and flavor, from the common tomato.

232 THE MARKET.

I looked through Boston in vain, the other day, to
find a common dish-mop large enough to serve my
purpose. There was no such thing to be found.
Taking up one of the slender tassels offered me, I
inquired into its history, and was informed that it
was imported from France. The one I had been tr>'-
ing to replace had been made by some skilful Yankee
hand for a Ladies' Fair. Now, what are our poor
women doing, that they cannot compete with this
French trumpery, and give us at least dish-mops fit
for use?

As teachers of g>'mnastics, women are already
somewhat employed. A wide field would be opened,
if a teacher were attached to each of our public
schools, — a step in physical education greatly needed.

No conservative is so prejudiced, I suppose, as to
object to placing woman in all positions of moral
supervision. Female assistants in jails, prisons, work-
houses, insane asylums, and hospitals, are seen to be
fit, and to have a harmonizing influence in ever>' re-
spect. How many more such assistants are needed,
we may guess from the fact that our City Jail and
Charlestown are still unsupplied. Women of a su-
j>erior order are needed for such posts; and when will
they be found? Not till labor is thoroughly re-
spected; not till the popular voice says, '*It is all
very well to be a Miss Dix, and go from asylum to
asylum, suggesting and improving; but it is just as
well, quite as honorable, to work in one asylum, car-
rying out the wise ideas which a Miss Dix suggests,

233

and securing the faithful trial of her experiments."
Many men in Beacon Street would feel honored to
call the moving philanthropist sister or friend; but
few would like to acknowledge a daughter in the
post of matron or superintendent. Why not? There
is something "rotten in the State'* where such incon-
sistencies exist. How thoroughly men accept such
women, as soon as they are permitted to try their ex-
periment, we may judge from the case of Florence
Nightingale and her staff. The very men, whose
scepticism kept the army suffering for months, would
be the first to send them now; and the soldiers, who
kissed her shadow where it fell, would fill the whole
Commissariat with women. When her gentle but
efficient hand broke in the doors of the storehouses at
Scutari, a general huzza followed from the very men
who were too timid to break the trammels of office.
The woman's keen sympathy with the advancing
spirit of her time, taught her what it was fit to do;
and, if the rippling smiles of suffering men had not
rewarded her when the bedding and stores were dis-
tributed, the warm encomiums of her Queen, whose
heart she had so truly read, must have done it. Fol-
lowing out this train of reflection, I have often
thought it would some day fall to women, and to
women alone, to exercise the function of parish min-
ister! I do not mean "parish preacher." I hold pul-
pit graces cheap by the side of that fatherly walk
among his people, which has made the name of
Charles Lowell sacred to the West Church. Go

234 THE MARKET.

back to the history of the first church in every town
see how the minister knew the story of every heart in
his parish; how he kept his eye on every lonely boy
or orphan girl; how widowed mothers took his coun-
sel about schools and rents; how forlorn old maids
trusted to him to make all "things come round right;"
how the lad, inclining to wild courses, found no bet-
ter friend than he. How is it now? The minister
has his Sunday sermons, his annual addresses before
certain societies, .his weekly association. In the old
time, such things were done, yet not the other left
undone. Now the lonely boy or orphan girl must
seek out the minister, — and how likely this is to
happen ever>'lx)dy knows; the mother must tell over
the story of her widowhood, pained to see how "in
course" it falls upon that wearied ear; the spinster
must tell again how the boat floated empty and lx)t-
tom upward to shore long years ago, and so no one
was "spared to keep all right;" and the wild lad —
alas! how many such do the clerg>' save now?

As I see such things, — and I do see them often, —
as I realize that change in men and times, in manners
and books, from which this change is inseparable, —
I confess I see a new* sphere opening for women. It
takes no remarkable gifts, in the common sense of
those words; only a kindly heart, a thoughtful head,
a tender, reverent care-taking, wholly apart from med-
dlesomeness. Not many are the ministers now who

♦ See Appendix, sketch of Mrs. Roberta, and other female preachers.

235

will pause to explain to Martha that she is careful
and troubled about many things; and that really the
visionary Mary, with her dreamy eyes, is choosing the
good part. Not many can see Nathanael standing
under the fig-tree, and remind him of it at the needful
moment. But if, in every religious household, there
were a deaconess, called by nature and God to her
work, — one to whom the young felt a right to go
with questions home could not answer; one pledged
to secret counsel, with whom the restless and un-
happy might confer, — it seems to me the wheels of
life would move more smoothly.* How the unlikeliest

* I did not think, certainly, when I wrote the above passage, of Arthur
Helpe's " Companions of my Solitude;" but, taking up the book during a day
of illness, I find a parallel passage in what he writes of the "sin of great cities."
In speaking of the many excuses which ought to be made for fallen women
he says: "And then there is nobody into whose car the poor girl can pour her
troubles, except the come* (u a beooar. This will bo said to be a leaning, on my
part, to the confessional. I cannot help this: I must speak the truth that is
in me."

It seams to me. that the ' ' narrow " church, against which so much is intimated
in our times, is nowhere so narrow as in its human sympathies. Oh that our
clergymen knew how many utterly friendUta souls sit before them clothed in
"purple and fine linen"! It is not to be taken for granted, that, because a
woman has a home, a father and mother, and a genial, social circle, she has a
friend, or even a counsellor. It is not the beggar-girl alone who needs a "Con-
fessor" within our Protestant churches. Many of the most refined, the most
noble, and the most wealthy, are hurried into unfit marriages, because they dare
not live alone, and think the superficial confidences of common courtship only
a prelude to something deeper which never comes.

Why should not the "Comforter" have come to our churches, with some
■pedal significance, before this? If stout-hearted Luther could say. "When
I am assailed with heavy tribulations, I rush out among my pigs, rather than
renoain alone by myself," why should any of us blush to confess our need of
help? Herein, it seems to me, lies the vital want of the modern church. Here
and there, the rare personal gifts of a single pastor lessen the evil : but what we
want, in every religious circle, is a friend to whom we can go, without the small-

236 THE MARKET.

persons are sometimes raised up to such a ministry,
let the following story tell. In the dim and dreary
precincts of the Seven Dials in London, years ago,
two orphan girls were left lying on door-steps, fed by
chance charity, to grow up as they might. One died;
and the other was finally adopted by an old man, an
atheist, who had been neighlx)r to her parents. She
grew up an atheist also, and married, — saved by
God's mercy from what had seemed her likeliest fate.
Stepping into the passage of the Bloomsbur>^ Mis.sion
Hall to shelter herself from the rain, one night, a
shaft, winged l)y the Holy Spirit, struck to her empty
heart.

est daiiRiT of bcitiK Hii«pect4Hl of imp*Ttincnce or CKotism, under the sanction
of the divine wortln, "Bear ye one another's burdens." The burdens of temp-
tation muAt \tc borne alone; but the burdens of poverty, wickneas, and grief,
should l)e share*] in ever>' Christian church, without reganl to the social con-
dition of the sufferer. Oftentimes the rich man is poorer than the pauper.
I know all the cbjections that will l>e raised. I frrl, to this day, how I saw one
clerKyman shrink, years ago, from a tale which he ought to have heard from
one aKoni2e<i woman's lips; and how others, admirable in the usual pulpit and
pastoral charRC, will think themselves unfit for this. Under such circumstances,
let a clerg>-man call upon those of hw congregation who arc willing to become
the friends of the rest, to meet in his study. From the half-doien who will have
at once the mtxieMy and the courage to come forward, let a man and a woman
be chosen to act as a "Committee of Comfort." This might Ik? done with the
utmost quietness; the minwter alone ne«l know the names of those willing to
serve; but if it were an understood thing, that every church had such officers,
the blessing would be beyond belief.

In many cases, no actual help could be given, beyond patient listening, a
mutual prayer, or tender soothing; but in every church there are souls that need
these far more than eloquent preaching, — souls that ask for nothing, except
some one to hear and consider xcho it not in a hurry, some one to appoint those
to their true uses who stand idle in a waiting world. I claim such an institution
for the sake of friendless tcomen; but such substitutes for it as the world has
hitherto had, have been by no means useless to men.

"the opening of the gates." 237

The next week, a lending library was to be opened
in the district. Marian was first at the door. *'Sir,"
said she, "will you lend me a Bible?"— "A Bible!"
exclaimed the man. "We did not mean to lend
Bibles; but I will get you one."

How long she read, how she was at first moved,
none but God can know. But, whether from mental
distress or from the sad vicissitudes of her needy
career, she became very ill, and went to a public
hospital. While there, she saw the sufferings of those
who applied for its charity, and observed that the
filthy state of their persons needed a friendly female
hand. When she came out, she wrote to the mission-
ary, and told him she wished to dedicate all her spare
time to the lost and degraded of her own sex. " God's
mercy," she writes, "has spared me from their fate:
for me their misery will have no terrors. I will clean
and wash them, and mend their linen. If they can
get into a hospital, I will take care of their clothes."
You may suppose the missionary did not lose sight
of Marian, and you may guess how gladly she under-
took to distribute Bibles; going, where none of the
gentry could go, into dens of misery known only to
the police-officers and herself. Spending her morn-
ings in distributing Bibles, and giving the kind and
pastoral counsel everywhere needed, she discovered,
in the autumn of 1857, a new want, and devoted her
afternoons to teaching the ignorant women about
her to cut and make their children's clothes. Why
she knew better than they, who shall tell? Then came

238 THE MARKET.

the November panic and its wide-spread distresses;
and, seeing how food was wasted from ignorance, she
opened a soup-kitchen of her own. She used what is
called vegetable stock: her wretched customers liked
it, and she sold it all through the \^'inter for a price
which just paid the cost of cooking. Her noble work
goes on. The stone which the builders of our modem
society would have rejected, is now the head of the
corner; and Seven Dials knows her as "Marian, the
Bible-woman."

Another mission has been begun at St. Pancras,
where, in one of the worst neighborhoods, the most
profligate men have gathered together, between church
hours, to hear a young lady read the " Pilgrim's Prog-
ress," and are thus softened and led to higher things.
Would you shut those sacred lips because they are a
woman's? Would you quote St. Paul to her, and
blush for her career, if she were your own daughter?
I will not believe it.

At the parish of St. Alkmunds, in Shrewsbury, the
wife of the clerg>^man, Mrs. Whitman, began by mod-
est reading from house to house; a work which has
since been greatly blessed. Gently she won profli-
gate men and women to give up their beer, and the
temptations of the *'tap;" signing herself the pledge
which they alone needed.

A very important work could be done in this city
by the establishment of a proper Training School
for Servants. One reason why our house-work is
60 miserably done is, that it is never regarded as

239

a profession, in which a certain degree of excel-
lence must be attained, but rather as a ** make-shift,"
by the aid of which a certain number of years can
be got through. The only thorough servant I ever
had was one who had been educated at such a
school in Germany. Here would be an admirable
field for some of the women who have money and
time, but no object in life. Such a school must be
carried on in connection with a good-sized board-
ing-house of a respectable kind; and beside the reg-
ular superintendents, who will, of course, be hired
for the different departments, there must be com-
mittees of ladies who should see to the practical
working of the institution in turn. This is neces-
sary to secure that thorough working in every depart-
ment which the best housekeeping demands. Only
by intelligent, refined oversight can feathered "flirts"
be hindered from taking the place of the tidy dust-
ing cloth; only so will a girl learn to sweep each
apartment separately, without dragging her accumu-
lations from floor to floor; only so can soap-suds
be kept off your oil-cloths, soiled hands from your
doors, and dust from your shirt-fronts. I do not
believe a better service could be done to the com-
munity than the establishment of such a school,
especially in relation to cooking.* A good many

* I must suggest, in this connection, a thought which I have not had time
to elaborate in the text. Very much needed in Boston is a restaurant for the
lower clw— es. presided over by the highest skill and intelligence, where well-
oooked, well-flavored, and ttimukuinv food could be offered at all times; and
where a judicious alternation 'of pea soup, baked beans, and very simple dishes,

240 THE MARKET.

such experiments have been successfully tried in
England, but none so thorough as that I would pro-
pose in Boston.

With regard to the lowest class of employed
women, such as are employed at home, we have,
it seems to me, several distinct duties to perform.

In the first place, we need a public but self-support-
ing Laundry. By this I mean two large halls, with
an adjacent area, built at the expense of the city,
and properly superintended, where, for so much an
hour, women of the lower class may wash, starch,
dr3% and iron the clothes they take home. A bleach-
ing-ground would be desirable; but, if it could not
be had, a steam dr>'ing-room would be the next
best thing. Good starch, soaps, and indigo should
be for sale upon the premises at wholesale prices;
it not being desirable that the city should make
money out of the necessities of its poor. If such

with roast meat and broths. tniKht secure daily nourishment for a very low price.
There is n great deal of ver>- cheap food, which an epicure might desire, but which
the poor have never been taught to prepare. Hundreds of wretched families
in Boston ought never to tr>' to make a cup of tea for themselves. In hot
weather, the shavings and wood necessar>' to boil the water are worth as much
as the tea itself. Crime of all sorts, and especially intemperance, will retreat
before a proper provision of nourishing and stimulating food for the lower
classes. Gallons of oyster liquor are thrown away every day by dealers who
sell the fish "solid." which would make the most nourishing of aoxips and stewa;
for no fiHxl replenishes the vital essences so rapidly as the oyster: hence its
inseparable connection with all places of dissipation and vicious resort. If
men would only make a good instead of an evil use of the few natural secrets
they discover! With such a restaurant. — which should, of course, be self-
supporting, — a capital training-school for cooks might easily be associated;
and so it would become an infinite blessing, in the end. to the kind hearts and
wise heads of those who should project it.

241

an establishment could be had, a great many women
would be changed from paupers to decent citizens.
They are tired of seeking washing; for, in their one
close room, scented with boiling onions or rank
meat, without a proper area for drying, and com-
pelled to pay high prices for poor soap and starch,
they cannot do decently the very work which phi-
lanthropy soon becomes unwilling to intrust to them,
and for which they are compelled to charge higher
than the best private laundry. The city could buy
coal, wood, soap, starch, and indigo at manufac-
turers' and importers' prices, and so give them a fair
chance for competition. I hope this project, long
since partially adopted in many cities of the Old
World, may find favor with my audience.

There is in Boston no place, strange as it may
seem, where plain, neatly finished clothing can be
bought ready-made. I can go down town, and buy
embroidered merinos, Paris hats with ostrich feathers,
and lace-trimmed, welted linen : but if I want a plain,
cotton skirt for a child, whereof the calico was eight
cents a yard; if I want a plain, cotton print made
into a neatly fitting dress; if I want a boy's coarse
apron, — such things are not to be had, or only so
very badly made that no one will buy them. I do
not want lace or embroidery or silk, or fine linen;
but I do want my button-holes nicely turned and
strong, my hems even, my gathers stroked, and, how-
ever plain and coarse, the whole finish of the gar-
ment such as a mistress of the needle only would

20

242 THE MARKET.

approve, such as no lady need be ashamed to wear.
So do others. The reasons given to explain the
non-existence of such a magazine in Boston are,
first, That our women of the middle class are, for
the most part, accustomed to cut and make their
own clothes; second. That there is a prevalent but
mistaken idea, that clothes made for sale cannot
possibly fit. With regard to the first point, it may
be said, that, as more and more avenues of labor
are open for women, this class perceives that it is
not good economy for them to do their own sewing.
Hands compelled to coarser or heavier labor cannot
sew quick or well, and those training to more deli-
cate manipulation lose practice by returning to it;
so there will be a constantly increasing class of
purchasers.

As to the impossibility of fitting, that is a vulgar
mistake. The human frame is quite as much the
result of law as Mr. Buckle's statistics. Any comely,
healthy form is a good model for all other forms of
the same height and breadth. Who ever heard of a
French bonnet or a bridal trousseau that did not
fit? yet these things are made by arbitrary rules.
Our superintendent could find every measure she
would ever need in one of the teeming houses on
Sea Street. She must take her measures from life,
not books. Nor would I have the sewing done with
machines, unless those of the highest cost could be
procured and ably superintended. The best machine
is as yet a poor substitute for the supple, human

243

hand; and many practical inconveniences must re-
sult from its use. It requires more skill and intel-
ligence to manage man's simplest machine, than to
control with a thought that complicated network
of nerve, bone, and fibre which we have been accus-
tomed to use.

Capital to start such an establishment as I refer to
is all that is needed. How desirable the thing is, you
can easily see. In the first place, if good common
clothing could be so purchased, mothers need not keep
a large stock on hand: an accident could be readily
repaired. In the second, it would greatly simplify and
expedite many a charitable task. The terrible suffer-
ing which followed the panic of November, 1857, you
all remember. Purses, always open hitherto, were
necessarily closed; no Sister of Charity was willing
to tread on the heels of the sheriff: yet the need was
greater than ever. Many persons who had dismissed
their servants were found willing to give a rough,
untrained girl her board; but who was to provide her
with decent clothes? They could not be bought, and to
make them was the work of time and strength. May
I always remember to honor, as God will always surely
bless, one woman possessed of wealth and beauty,
who did clothe from head to foot with her own nee-
dle, in that dreadful winter, three "wild Irish girls,"
and took them successively into her own family; train-
ing them to habits of tolerable decency, until others,
less self-sacrificing, were found ready to do their
part!

244 THE MARKET.

No people in our community suflFer such inconve-
nience, loss, and imposition, in having their clothes
made, as our servant girls. If a plentiful supply of
calico sacks and skirts or loose dresses could be any-
where found, few girls would ever employ a dress-
maker.

I have spoken of Public Laundry Rooms, and a
Ready-made Clothing Room. There is a class of
women greatly to be benefited by the establishment
of a Knitting Factory. It is well known to every
person in this room, especially to physicians, that no
knitting done by machinery can compete with that
done by the human hand, in durability, warmth, or
stimulative power. Invalids are now obliged to im-
port the Shetland jackets, which are always badly
shaped; or to hire, at our fancy stores, the making of
delicate and very expensive fabrics. Men's socks and
children's gloves may be purchased; but the first cost
from seventy-five cents to a dollar a pair, and the last
are of very inferior manufacture. We cannot give
out knitting to advantage, because of the dirt and
grease it is liable to accumulate where water is not
plenty nor ventilation to be had; and very good knit-
ters of socks have not skill and intelligence to man-
age the different sizes, or to shape the larger articles,
such as drawers and under-jackets for the two sexes.
Coarse crocheting would answer better than knitting
for many articles.

Let a large airy room be hired, well supplied with
Cochituate. Let all sorts of material be kept on

245

hand, and some coarse, warm kinds of Shetland yarn
imported that are now to be had. Let at least
two superintendents be appointed from among the
women who work best for our fancy stores; let
knitting-women be invited to use this room for
twelve hours a day, or less, as they choose, — receiv-
ing daily pay for their daily needs; and in less than
one year you would have an establishment, for which
not merely Boston, but all New England, would be
grateful. I should hope that neither this nor the
Clothing Room would ever offer very expensive or
highly ornamental articles for sale. There is no dan-
ger that the interests of the wealthy will suffer.
What I desire is to provide for the needs of the low-
est women and the comfort of the middle-class cus-
tomer.

The young girls in Beacon Street have now some-
thing to do. I offer them the establishment of a
Training School for Servants, of a public but self-
supporting Laundry, of a Ready-made Clothes Room,
and a Knitting Factory; all simple matters, entirely
within their control, if they would but believe it.

A certain human faithfulness often interferes with
the execution of such plans. If my young friends
doubt, let them go and talk to Harriet Ryan about it.
She will show them, how, having taken the first step
toward duty, God always leads the way to the sec-
ond. To cheer them still further, I will tell them —
for I may never have a fitter opportunity — of the
splendid success of the industrial schools in Ireland,

246 THE MARKET.

established in 1850 by Ellen Woodlock, — a name
destined to stand honorably by the side of Florence
Nightingale; and, worthy to precede it, in so far as
preventive measures are always a greater good than
remedial. Mrs. Ellen Woodlock has powers of state-
ment, according to the "London Times," equal to her
extraordinary powers of execution; and it is from
her own account of the work that I select what I
have to offer you.

In 1850, Mrs. Woodlock had placed her only child
at school, and lx>gan to look for something to do. A
lady, who had started an industrial school on a gift of
$250 from a clergyman, asked for her help. She pro-
posed to teach young girls to do plain sewing. Very
soon, there were more seamstresses than customers;
but God did not fail to open a way. One poor, half-
blind creature — very poor and very earnest — failed
in the plain sewing, and was put to make cabbage
nets. She did it so well, that Mrs. Woodlock taught
her to make silk nets for the hair. The nets took:
other girls were taught; and Mrs. Woodlock went to
all the shops in Cork, and coaxed the merchants
to buy of her. She very soon began to make nets
for exportation. Mrs. Woodlock's fashionable niece
arrived from Dublin, with a new style of crocheted
net. Her aunt had a dozen made directly; and, by
showing these, got orders from all the merchants
for the new style. One day, a merchant came into
the school, and saw a little girl at work on a mohair
net. He asked the price, and found that she would

247

make him twelve for the same money that he had
paid for one in London. So you may guess where
his next orders went.

Mrs. Woodlock then made interest with the ** buy-
ers," or young men who go to London twice a year to
purchase goods. They took over her patterns, and
returned with orders so large that their principals at
once entered into the business. Yellow nets were
made for Germany. Many were sent to England
and America; and orders came so thick that they
had to share them with the convent schools. They
paid out a hundred dollars weekly; and alacrity and
intelligence beamed where there had been, at first,
only hopeless suffering and imbecility. Of course,
this point was not reached without much self-sacri-
fice. At first, the children made awkward work that
would not sell. Then the lady patronesses got tired,
and dropped off. Worn and worried, Mrs. Woodlock
fell ill. If you ever undertake any of these schemes 1
have mentioned, you must be prepared for all these
things : they will certainly happen. No one ever fought
a revolutionary war, and established an independence,
without one or two defeats like that at Bunker Hill.*
When they become historic, we call them victories.
When Mrs. Woodlock found that she was human and

♦This allusioD waa made before an American audience, to show that the
defeats siiffered in a noble cause are honored in time as victories. So strong
is our popular delusion on this point, that few of the common people can be
found willing to believe that we were actually defeated at Bunker Hill. It
was our "first battle." All honor to all such!

248 THE MARKET.

liable to fall ill, she sent for some Sisters of
Charity, and trained several, so that they could, on an
emergency, fill her place well.

But Mrs. Woodlock did not stop here. She used to
teach the Catechism in the parish church; and, one
day she gave notice that a new school would be
opened in that neighborhood. The next morning,
one hundred and fifty girls, between the ages of fif-
teen and twenty-five, presented themselves. Mrs.
Woodlock asked every girl, who had ever earned any
money before to hold up her hand. Four girls did
so. They had sold apples in the streets. One hun-
dred and forty-six suffering creatures, who had no
way to earn a cent! Think what a class it was! Do
you remember what I told you, the other day, of
eighteen hundred and eighty women in New York
who had never been taught to support themselves?
Ten of the best workers from the first school were
taken to teach these girls; and, for a salary, the
teacher received the first perfect dozen of nets made
by each of her pupils. This plan was not costly, and
worked well. There was no lack of faithfulness.
Travellers came to see the schools. There was no
time wasted in looking for orders: they had more
than they could fill. Of course, they must keep these
hands employed: so other manufactures must be
tried. Mrs. Woodlock thought she would try fine shirt
fronts for the city dealers. What do you think the
people said? That it could not be done in all Ire-
land; that there was nobody to wash and iron them

249

properly; that they would have to be sent all the way
to Glasgow to be boxed in card boxes! Well, the
nuns undertook the first washing and ironing, — mak-
ing apprentices, let us hope, of some of the older
pupils; and Mrs. Woodlock found a starving band-box
maker, whom she herself taught to make flat boxes.
And look now at the blessing which always follows
wise work. This flat-box maker has had to take ap-
prentices, has opened another branch of her business in
Limerick, and has put money into the Savings' Bank.

Mrs. Woodlock's account of her work would be a
great help to any young persons engaged in philan-
thropic effort. She lays the ver>' greatest stress upon
her machinery, — her methods. Every industrial work
ought to support itself: if it does not, it is a failure.
All her schools earn their own bread, in every sense;
and all reforming agencies must always stand second
to any institution which does that. See how she car-
ried this thought into her daily life. Mrs. Woodlock
had a brother who was one of the Board of Poor-Law
Guardians. Seeing the success of her work, he per-
suaded the other members to employ an embroidery
mistress in the Union School for a few months.

When these children knew enough, Mrs. Woodlock
took out six, and put them into her industrial school,
till she was sure they could support themselves.
Then she let them look up lodgings, and continued
to give them work from the school. In a few weeks,
they got on so well that they began to take their rela-
tions and friends out of that terrible poorhouse.

250 THE MARKET.

Three young girls took out their mother and cousin,
and supported them. Eighty girls were brought ofif
the parish by the first working of her schools. A
house has also been opened for orphans, where they
are trained to support themselves.

Now, my friends, the census, at the end of ten
years, will report a great change in the industrial
condition of Ireland; and the beginning of that
change was Mrs. Woodlock's intelligent moral effort
to benefit her countrywomen, — in the first place, to
teach one little sufferer to make cabbage-nets. That
element will enter into the statistics on which Mr.
Buckle bids you so confidently rely. Do not believe
him when he says that moral effort can never help
anybody but yourself, because it will be balanced, in
the long-run, by your neighbor's immoral effort. Two
and two make four in statistics, and always will
while the world stands; but two and two and one
make five, and not four, as he asserts; and the one
which he forgets to enumerate is no other than the
divine Centre of life and action, — God himself. I
value Mr. Buckle's book. I see how clearly he
thinks; how much he has read; and how much truer
his historical attitude than any ever before assumed.
But when a man separates goodness from knowledge;
tells you that intelligence may reign alone; does not
see that the two are now and for ever one, equal
attributes of the divine natiu-e, — ^then he makes a
mistake which saps the very foundation of his own
work, and writes fallacy on every page.

251

What he says is perfectly true of mistaken, ignorant
moral effort. That does help yourself, and does not
help anybody else. It helps you, because it develops
your right-mindedness, — your generosity. It does
not help anybody else. It hinders others who are
clearer intellectually: they see and despise the mis-
takes, and are not inspired by the purpose. Had it
been intelligent, they would have seen it to be divine.

Mrs. Woodlock's work was both intelligent and
moral. What inspired the pupils was her moral force
and disinterested love. They saw this, and were kin-
dled by it; while the community at large respected the
intelligence and common sense with which she laid
her plans. Intelligence made these plans self-sup-
porting; intelligence gave them solid pyramidal posi-
tion in the world: but moral energy gave them their
prestige, and will win its way by the side of intelli-
gence into the very columns which Mr. Buckle's
closing volume must quote.

Do not be disheartened, then, as to the ultimate
profit to others of any kindly work you feel inclined
to do. Let kindliness inspire, let inteUigence direct,
your efforts. God has made your success certain
from the very foundations of the world.

I cannot close such inadequate survey of this field
as I have felt it my duty to offer, without alluding to
one other fact, and making one parting suggestion.
It cannot but be realized, by all the women to whom
I speak, how very casual is the communication
between the laboring class in this community and

252 THE MARKET.

their employers. Suppose a housekeeper wants addi-
tional service, how can she secure it? If she is not
wealthy enough to hire regularly, her "chance" is a
very poor one; and she must take the recommenda-
tion, in nine cases out of ten, of some one in the
charwoman's own rank of life.

Suppose a maid of all work leaves a mistress alone
early some busy Monday morning, where can her
place be filled? How can any one be found who
will work by the hour or the day, in a cleanly, respect-
able manner, till »a new servant can be deliberately
chosen? Nobody knows of a washer-woman who is
out of work on Monday. The intelligence offices
hold no women so distressed that they will go out for
less than a week, and that on trial. Yet, somewhere
in the city, there must be women pining and longing
for that waiting work.

Suppose a sudden influx of visitors exhausts your
household staff, and makes a waiting-maid a necessity
where none was kept before; suppose a large group
of relatives, passing quickly through the city, come
for a plain family dinner at a moment when your per-
sonal superintendence is impossible, — where is the
active, tidy girl who can be summoned, or the decent
woman of experience who can order matters in your
kitchen as well as you can yourself?

Somewhere they sit waiting — suffering, it may be
— for the opportunity which never comes. The in-
telligence office will get them places; but places they
are not at liberty to seek. They need what they call
"a chance lift."

253

I am well aware that wealthy knd long-established
families may not suffer much from this cause. Old
servants well married, or a variety of well-paid ser-
vants with wide connections in the neighborhood, or
deserving objects of charity personally met and under-
stood, often prevent such persons from feeling any
inconvenience; but for young housekeepers, for new
residents, for persons of small means and few con-
nections, there is no help.

I need not enlarge on the subject. There is no
kind of female labor of which it is easy to get a
prompt and suitable supply. To obviate this dif-
ficulty, I think there should be a sort of "Labor
Exchange;" and this is a project which all classes
would be glad to have carried out. How shall it be
done? That, of course, must be settled by those who
have the task in charge; but, to explain what I mean,
I will offer a few suggestions. In the first place,
What are the defects in the intelligence-offices now in
existence? * There are several. They take cogni-

* I cannot allude to the subject of Intcllicence-offices without aajring, that
all such institutions ought to be brought, in some new and effective manner,
under public supervision and control.

A private Intelligence-office, kept in the superintendent's own house, cannot
be interfered with, unless it can be proved a nuisance; and how diffiouU it is to
abate a nuisance I need not tell anybody who has ever tried the experiment.

The keeper of a General or Public Intelligence-office makes application for
a Uoenee to the city government, sustained by a certain number of respectable
vouchers, and pays, I believe, a yearly fee of one dollar.

This looks fair enough; and, if every officer of the city government, from
the lowest police-officer to the mayor, were immaculate, it would be so; but
we all know what the fact is. It is an open secret, that, in all Our largest cities,
the marta of vice are stocked from these places, and that they serve the pur

254 THE MARKET.

zance of domestic servants alone. They are kept by
ignorant or inexperienced persons, who often lose
sight of the interests of both the employer and the
employed in their own pecuniary loss or gain. These
persons have necessarily little insight into character,
and do not see how to bring the right persons together.
They will send a slow, dawdling girl to an impatient,
lively mistress; — a smart upstart to some meek, little
wife, who has hardly learned the way to order her own
house; and the natural misunderstandings will occur.
Then the books of the office are irregularly kept, and
closed to the applicant, so that you have no chance to
select for yourself. Go down to an office, and ask for
a servant; tell the keeper not to send a raw girl, not
to send one without a recommendation, not to send a
foreigner who cannot speak English; and go home.
The odds are, that, while you are taking off your
bonnet, there will be three rings at the bell. The

poses of bad men better than houses of professedly vicious resort. One of the
most expcllont and respectable women I know, who superintends one of these
offices, told me herself that four women made assifcnations on her premises, and
went out of her office to keep them, without her having power to prevent it.
She proved the correctness of her suspicions by employing one of her vouchers
to watch the result. If this happens under the eyes of the virtuous and vigilant,
what may not happen when the head of the establishment is in the pay of in-
terested parties? I do not know in what way this wickedness can be broken up;
but, in the words of Dr. Gannett, "what must be done, can be." Is it not a
terrible thought, that fashionable women and tender girls should supply them-
selves with servants from the very brink of that hell they beUeve they have
never touched? Is it not a far more terrible thought, that an innocent stranger
cannot seek her daily bread without running the risk of certain perdition?
How real these possibilities are, there are those in this city able to testify.

Ought not the ministers at large, of all denominations, and our overseers of
the poor, to unite in prompt and efficient action in this regard?

255

first girl will be a barefooted imp of Erin, just from
the steerage. Some one at the office has been watch-
ing three days for just such a hand to be broken into
a farm-kitchen. The second wears a flower-garden
on her head, more flounces than you do, and has, of
course, no recommendation. Some soda-room wants
her; but you do not. The third is high Dutch, and,
when you ask her for the coal-hod, brings you, in her
despair, the bread-tray. Neither of these three is
what you ordered or wanted.

Do you ask me the reason of this bad management,
and whether I think it can be remedied? The reason
of it is, that the superintendence of these offices is
not treated like a profession. People neither fit them-
selves for it, nor are attracted to it by nature: they
simply do it; and how they do it we feel. They
want comprehensive insight, have no business ways,
and these difficulties are only to be obviated by bring-
ing a higher intelligence to bear upon the arrange-
ments.

Let us have a place where all kinds of female work
can be sought and found; an intelligent working com-
mittee first, who know what is wanted, and how to
get it, and who, most important of all, shall not be
too wise to accept diplomas from experience.

Let us have a committee of five; its quorum to be
three. Let these persons hire a large, clean, airy
room, and appoint an intelligent superintendent, —
one who will be interested to have the experiment
thoroughly successful. Let them line the walls, and

256 THE MARKET.

screen off the room with frames, having glass covers,
to lock and unlock. Let one frame be devoted to
cooks; another, to laundresses; another, to washer-
women, window-washers, charwomen, seamstresses,
dressmakers, copyists, translators, or what you will;
and under the glass the notices should be posted.
Each should contain the name, age, and residence of
the applicant; the situation last held, and for how
long; the full address of the reference; and the date
of posting. The date should be printed and mova-
ble, and changed semi-weekly, on the personal appli-
cation of the poster. Each woman should pay five
cents for the privilege of posting; should lose this
privilege from misconduct, from neglect to report her-
self, from proved falsehood. Xo date should be left
unchanged more than a week, and the superintendent
should be responsible for the strict observance of the
regulations. No woman, not even a charwoman,
should be allowed to use the posting privilege, unless
she had a reference. ''What!" you will say, '*is that
kind?" Yes, it is kind: the want of it is doubly
cruel. A woman who needs work can afford to offer
a day's free work to get a reference; and referees
should be required to tell the simple truth. A lady
who once recommended a dishonest or incapable
servant without the proper qualification should be
struck off the books, not allowed to testify again in
that court.

With regard to all transient labor, it should be the
duty of the superintendent to see that the references

257

are reliable before posting, so that those who apply in
haste need not be delayed.

If a dressmaker or charwoman inform the super-
intendent that she has worked for A, B, and C, let a
printed circular, addressed to such persons, inquiring
if they can recommend her, and to what degree, be
placed in her hands. To this she should bring written
answers before being allowed to post.

If the institution became popular, books would
have to be kept, corresponding to these glass cases
— one book for cooks, another for housemaids, and
80 on; but the cases should never be given up.
There should always be as many as the room will
hold. Ladies should pay a certain sum for each
servant they obtain; and the servant should pay
for every place she gets, at a rate proportioned to
the wages received. In most intelligence offices, the
servants get two places for the same fee, if they
do not stay over a week in the place, and the lady
gets two girls or more on the same condition. This
works like a premium on change of place. The ser-
vant should prove to the Labor Exchange, that
she did not leave her place of her own will, and
the lady should show that incapacity or insubordi-
nation made it impossible to keep her.

It should be a cash business, and a fee should
be paid for each application. Wanting a cook, you
go down to the room, and consult the proper frame.
Finding, perhaps, forty posters, you select one that
reads like this: —

21

258 THE MARKET.

Matilda Haynes.

Irish.

Twenty-five years of age.

In the country four years.

Thoroughly understands plain cooking.

Expects two dollars.

Is willing to go out of town.

Lived last at No. 4, Pemberton Square.

Kept the place six months.

May refer to it.

Can be found at 24, High Street.

You first go to Pemberton Square. It is quite
possible that this girl may not be what you want;
but if she is, and your eye tells you that you can
trust the judgment of her referee, you have only to
go to High Street, and make your owti terms. If
you are already prejudiced in her favor, you w\\\
go prepared to make some concessions, so that the
chance will be better for you both; and this pro-
cess may be repeated without loss of time, till you
are supplied.

You will see that this is quite a feasible plan,
and has two advantages. One is, that you have
access to the books, and can choose for yourself;
the other is, that there would be no waiting-room
for servants, where they should talk with, prejudice,
and morally harm each other. You would also be
saved the pain of rejecting servants to their faces,
on the ground of "greenness," or bodilj' unfitness.
Such an institution would offer this advantage over
the present offices, that it would direct you to tem-

259

porary laborers, and give you in a moment the ad-
dresses of some dozens. Such an institution would
be a very great saver of time, and so a great bless-
ing.

If, in the course of these lectures, any words that
I have spoken have touched your hearts, or carried
conviction to your minds, do not put aside, I be-
seech you, such impulse as they may have given.
Remember that, however feebly the subject has been
treated, however presumptuous may seem the at-
tempt, the subject itself is the most important theme
that is presented to this generation. In my first
lecture I showed you, that while women, ever since
the beginning of civilization, have been sharing the
hardest, and doing the most unwholesome work,
they have also done the worst paid in the world.
I showed you that this poor pay, founded on a
false estimate of woman's value as a human being,
and consequently as a laborer, was filling your streets
with criminals, with stricken souls and bodies, for
whose blood society is responsible to God. Having
proved thus, that women need new avenues of labor,
I tried in my second lecture to show you, that, when
she sought these, she had been met too often by the
selfish opposition of man. I showed also that all
such opposition proved, in the end, unavailing; that
all the work she asks will inevitably be given. I
showed you, from the censuses of Great Britain
and America, how much labor is even now open
to her; that it is not half so necessary to open new

260 THE MARKET.

avenues of labor as to make work itself respectable
for women; and I therefore entreated women to learn
to work thoroughly and well, that men might re-
spect their labor in the aggregate. "Woman's work"
means nothing very honorable or conscientious now.
Alter its significance till it indicates the best work
in the world.

In my present lecture I have indicated some of
the steps that might be taken to benefit the women
in the heart of this city. To encourage you to take
them, I have briefly pointed out Ellen Woodlock's
remarkable success. Have I kindled any interest
in your minds? Can you enter into such labors?
Have you strength or time or enthusiasm to spare?
In the ballads of Northern Europe, a loving sister trod
out, with her bare feet, the nettles whose fibre, woven
into clothing, might one day restore her brothers to
huinan form.

Your feet are shod, your nettles are gathered: will
you tread them out courageously, and so restore to
your sisters the nature and the privileges of a blessed
humanity?

Opportunity is a rare and sacred thing. God
seldom offers it twice. In the English fields, the
little Drosera, or sundew, lifts its tiny, crimson -head.
The delicate buds are clustered in a raceme, to the
summit of which they climb one by one. The top-
most bud waits only through the twelve hours of a
single day to open. If the sun do not shine, it withers
and drops, and gives way to the next aspirant.

261

So it is with the human heart and its purposes.
One by one, they come to the point of blossoming.
If the sunshine of faith and the serene heaven of
resolution meet the ripe hour, all is well; but if you
faint, repel, delay, they wither at the core, and your
crown is stolen from you, — your privilege set aside.
Esau has sold his birthright, and the pottage has
lost its savor.

THE COURT;

OR,

WOMAN'S POSITION UNDER THE LAW.
IN THREE LECTURES,

DELIVERED IN BOSTON. JANUARY. 1861

I. — ^The Oriental Estimate and the French Law.
IL — ^The English Ck)MMON Law.

IIL— The United-States Law, and some Thoughts on Hu-
man Rights.

"Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are registered where every day I turn
The leaf to read them."

Macbeth.

"Some reasons of this double coronation
I have possessed you with, and think them strong."

"Why do you bend such solemn brows on mef
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?"

King John,

"According to the fair play of the world.
Let me have audience. I am sent to speak."

King John.

"Let this be copied out,
And keep it safe for our remembrance.
Return the precedent to these lords again."

King John.

THE COURT.

THE ORIENTAL ESTIMATE AND THE FRENCH LAW.

" It was not Zeua who uttered this decree,
Or Justice, dwelling with the gods below:
Nor did I think thy will such power possessed,
That thou, a mortal, could o'errule the laws
Unwritten and immovable of God."

Antigone: Sophocles.

"We seldom doubt that something in the large
Smooth order of creation, though no more
Than haply a man's footstep, has gone wrong."

E. B. Browning.

"The law of God, positive law and positive morality, sometimes
coincide, sometimes do not coincide, and sometimes conflict,"
— John Austin : Province of Jurispmdence Defined.

"/^F Law, no less can be said than that her seat is
^-^ the bosom of God ; her voice, the harmony of
the spheres. All things in heaven and earth do her
reverence; the greatest as needing her protection, the
meanest as not afraid of her power."

In reading this magnificent and well-known sen-
tence from Hooker, the imagination is easily kindled
to a divine prescience. We accept the definition.
Fair before us rise the graceful proportions of eternal
order in society, upon which wait present peace and

(265J

266 THE COURT.

future progress; towards which those bow most rev-
erently who live most purely and see most clearly.
But alas! if the reader be a woman, her heart may
well sink when the enthusiasm of the moment has
passed; and she must ask, with a feeling somewhat
akin to displeasure, "Of what law realized on earth,
administered in courts, dealt out from legislatures or
parliaments, from republics or autocrats, were these
sublime words written?"

Where in the soft shadows of Oriental hareems, in
the gloom of Hindoo caves, Egyptian pyramids, or
Attic porches, sculptured by divinest art, and lumi-
nous with marbles of every hue; where in the porticos
echoing to Roman stoicism, or the baths floating on
Roman license; where in the saloons of French so-
ciety, or by the hearths of good old England; where,
alas! in the free States of America, whether North
or South, — has a system of law prevailed that women
could think of, without blasphemy, as sitting in the
bosom of God, and so entitled to the reverence of
man?

We outgrow all things. Always the new patch
breaks the fabric of the old garment; alwaj^s the
new wine shatters the well-dried leathern pouch
which held the vintage of our ancestors. But most
of all do we outgrow, have we outgrown, our laws.
They fall back, dead letters, into the abj^ss of that
past from which we have emerged. We put new
laws upon the statute-book, and do not pause to wipe
out the old; finding our protection in the public feel-

THE ORIENTAL ESTIMATE. 267

ing and the public progress, if not in the traditions of
the elders.

This, and this only, saves old systems from violent
demolition. Were the State of Connecticut at this
moment to attempt bo put in force such of the blue-
laws as are technically unrepealed, she would be met
by the open rebellion of. her highest officer; and the
chief -justice who should attempt to fine a bishop for
kissing his wife on Sunday might shake hands cor-
dially with the chief-justice who once ruled that a
man might beat his wife with a stick no bigger than
his thumb!

The laws which relate to woman are based, for the
most part, on a very old and a very Oriental estimate
of her nature, her powers, and her divinely ordained
position. We shall see this, if we follow the course
of legal enactments or religious prohibitions from the
beginning. When the subject of Woman's Civil
Rights first came to be considered, it was customary
CO quote from the scholars one of the sayings of
Vishnu Sarma: "Every book of knowledge which is
known to Oosana or to Vreehaspatee is by nature im-
planted in the understandings of women."

Nobody asked what sort of knowledge was known
to these two deities; but most readers took it for
granted that it was divine: and ordinary people asked
why, if society began with this reverent faith, we had
nothing better now than the practical scepticism of
priest and lawyer. When the names of these two
deities were translated into Venus and Mercury (that

268 THE COURT.

is, into love and cunning), the announcement seemed
more in keeping with the subsequent revelations of
Vishnu Sarma: —

"Women, at all times," he says, "have been inconstant, even
among the Celestials."

"Woman's virtue is founded upon a modest countenance,
precise behavior, rectitude, and a deficiency of suitors.^'

"In infancy, the father should guard her; in youth, her hus-
band; in old age, her children: for at no time is a woman fit to be
trusted with Uberty."

"Infidelity, violence, deceit, envy, extreme avarice, a total
want of good qualities, with impurity, are the innate faults of
womankind."

These extracts will throw some light, perhaps,
upon the knowledge of Oosana and Vreehaspatee,
and will save modern women from any very strong
desire to restore the "good old rule." After such a
commentary on this seeming compliment, we shall
not think it strange, that, in a country where dialect
is the exponent of condition, the most ancient drama
represents the Hindoo wife as addressing het lord
and master in the dialect of a slave.

"It is proper," says an ancient Hindoo scripture,
"for every woman, after her husband's death, to bum
herself in the fire with his corpse." I quote this say-
ing here only to advert to the power of public opin-
ion, which has been strong enough for ages to
compel this sacrifice. But for it, many a woman,
who had been burnt during her whole conjugal life in
the fires of tyranny, self-will, and arrogant dominion,
might have hailed with joy the hour of her release.

THE ORIENTAL ESTIMATE. 269

Under it, such a woman went calmly to the new
martyrdom.

An ancient Chinese writer tells us, that the newly
married woman should be but an echo in the house.
Her husband may strike her, starve her, nay, even let
her out! Such was the spirit of most Oriental cus-
tom and law. It has crossed the Ural; so that Kohl,
the German traveller, tells us that a Turk blushes
and apologizes when he mentions his wife, as if he
had been guilty of a needless impertinence. The
same thing is reported of one of the Sclavic tribes,
among whom it may have been borrowed from their
Ottoman conquerors.

In the "London Quarterly" for October, 1860, we
are told that the convent of Nuestra Senhora da
Ajuda in Rio was long employed for the purpose of
locking up ladies whose husbands were on their
travels. This has been forbidden by the present
emperor.

There were, however, singular exceptions to the
prevailing estimate. In the Island of Ccelebes,
where the government is republican in form, the
president, and four out of six councillors, are not un-
frequently women. In the diary of the Marquess of
Hastings, we are told, that among the Garrows, a
populous and independent clan in the hill country in
the north-east of India, all property and authority
descend in the female line. On the death of the
mother, the bulk of the possessions goes to the favor-
ite daughter, so designated, without regard to primo-

270 THE COURT.

geniture in her lifetime. The widower has a stipend
settled on him at the time of marriage, and a moder-
ate portion is given to each daughter. The sons are
expected to support themselves. A woman, called
Muhar, is the chief of each clan. Her husband is
called Muharree, and has a representative authority,
but no right to her property. Should he incline to
squander it, the clan will interfere in her behalf.
When the Duke of Wellington fought the battle of
Assaye, in 1803, against the Mahrattas, a woman, the
Begum of Lumroom, belonging to the military tribe
of Nairs, fought against him at the head of her cav-
alry. In this tril3e the succession follows, according
to the duke's report, the female line. This was on
the coast of Malabar, south of Bombay, and in what
we should call the south-western part of the Deccan.
In spite of the difference in orthography, and the
statement about the north-east, I think these stories
may refer to the same clan. An orthography so vari-
ously rendered as the East Indian is a blind guide.

Quite evident is it that the proverbs of more
western and later-bom nations grew out of the esti-
mate of Vishnu Sarma and his compeers. Look at
them: —

"A rich man is never ugly in the eyes of a girl."
"A beautiful woman, smiling, tells of a purse gaping."
"Every woman would rather be handsome than good."
"A house full of daughters is a cellar full of sour beer."
"Three daughters and the mother are four devils for the
father."

THE ORIENTAL ESTIMATE. 271

"A man of straw is worth a woman of gold."

"A rich wife is a source of a quarrel."

" 'Tis a poor rooet where the hen crows."

"A happy couple is a husband deaf and a wife blind. ^'

It is quite evident, I think, that men made these
proverbs; and somewhat mortifying, not to women
only J but to our common humanity, that they should
have the run of society and the newspapers, in an
age which has given birth to Florence Nightingale,
Mary Patton, and Dorothea Dix, — women who have
been bom only to remind us that their counterparts
appeared a thousand years ago.

Aristophanes and Juvenal, Boileau and Churchill,
turn these slanderous proverbs into verse, if not
into poetry; and, in examining the laws of more
modern times, we shall constantly trace the effect of
the old Oriental estimate. In all such examinations,
we have four points to consider: —

1st, That estimate of woman on which her civil
p>osition is founded, and those rights of property
which are granted or refused to her accordingly.

2d, Such laws as relate to marriage and divorce.

3d, Such laws or customs as keep woman out of
office, off the jury, and refuse her all authorized legit-
imate interference in public affairs.

4th, Her right of suffrage.

Of these points, the discussion of such laws as re-
late to marriage and divorce is alone to be restricted
by any considerations of prudence. It has never
seemed to me a wise thing to open needlessly this

272 THE COURT.

discussion; and the opening of it by women is need-
less, while they are in no position to discuss it equally
with men. In the marriage relation, whatever is the
certain loss and misery of one sex is also the certain
loss and misery of the other. Whatever inequality and
injustice appertains to it will be best removed when
the two sexes can consider it together, like two equal
and competent powers.* I shall advert to the laws
of marriage and divorce, only to point out mistakes
or bad results not generally perceived, and make no
attempt to treat them at length.

When we consider what sort of public opinion has
educated woman, what estimate has lain at the bottom
of all the laws passed concerning her, it does not
seem strange, that, after living for ages in a false posi-
tion, she should somewhat approximate to this esti-
mate; so that we say with pain of the mass of women,
that they themselves need a change quite as much as
their circumstances. It is common, in treating of
this subject, to dwell on the position of woman under
the Roman law; but very little is gained by it. We
can see by the literature of the nation what estimate
was put upon woman, and what share she took in the
degradation of society; but how far this was the con-
sequence of bad law, what changes were wrought from
the time of Justinian, not merely in law, but in moral
soundness under the law, it is not easy to tell in a
country w^hich had neither printing-presses nor news-

♦ Of couree. I do not mean to be understood here as objecting to any tem-
perate and earnest attempt by men or women to amend law.

THE ORIENTAL ESTIMATE. 273

papers. We have only the judgment of a few men,
themselves law-makers, to rely upon; and their opin-
ions had a very limited circulation in their lifetime, and
could not be tested by any cotemporaneous verdict.
It is in vain that we listen to testimony when no com-
petent witnesses appear on the " other side." Women,
however, ought always to remember to whom they
owe the changes made in Justinian's time. The life
of Theodora is yet to be written. The scandalous
anecdotes of a secret history must some day be bal-
anced by the public testimony of Procopius, and some
good be told of the woman whose first thought, when
raised to empire, was for the companions of her pre-
vious infamy, and whose influence over her husband
never faltered, and is visible in every modification of
the laws relating to her sex. If we could realize the
corruptness of the higher classes of society, we should
not wonder at the emperor who chose his wife from
the streets; and the fact itself tells a story which he
who heeds need not misunderstand.*

* It will easily be conjectured that I do not feel competent to treat the great
subject of Roman legislation for women, in the noble and extended manner
which is at onoe, as it seems to me, necessary and possible. Perhaps I shall
never become so.

It seems to me proper, however, that I should indicate my dissatisfaction
with existing methods in the clearest manner, and drop a few bints, as I do in
the text, as to the difficulties in the way.

Roman sepulchral inscriptions, of the era generally considered the most
licentious, bear witness in the fullest manner to the existence of chastity and
domestic virtue. A sepulchral inscription, it may be argued, is a poor witness
to facts. I would suggest in reply, that a nation ceases to commemorate the
virtue which has ceased to exist, or which it has. through a general depravity
of manners, ceased to respect.

22

274 THE COURT.

The laws which most directly affect us here in
America are the laws of France and England: the
laws of France, because they modify the code of
Canada, Florida, and Louisiana; the laws of Eng-
land, because in her common law, recognized all over
the country by all the States, we find the basis of all
that is objectionable in our legislation.

First, then, let us consider the estimate on which
the French law is based, and then its property-laws.
Civil position and the right of franchise can be dis-
posed of in a few words the world over. "There is
one thing which is not French," said Bonaparte, as he
closed a cabinet council, while preparing his famous
Code; "and that is, a woman who can do as she
pleases."

The estimate of woman in France is of a double
character.

It is lon\ because marriage among the upper classes
is, at the best, only a well-made bargain.

It is high, because women have been encouraged to
enter trade, both by law, which protects them in their
capacity as merchants, and by the military character
of the nation, which prevents men from entering busi-
ness.

It is loWy because throughout the provinces there
are remnants of old feudal custom, which keep her
in the position of a slave. The peasant's wife rarely
sits at table: she crouches in the chimney-comer,
eating from the stew-pan; while her husband sits
at the table in state before his porringer. Yet, in

THE FRENCH LAW. 275

another respect, this very woman helps to raise the
estimate of her sex; for she works with her husband
in the field, while a wealthier wife is often only a
burden. Like him, she is exposed to all the changes
of the weather. Pregnancy does not save her from
the plough or the vintage. While her husband rests
at noon, she must nurse her babe or prepare his meal.

In most countries, it is desirable to turn the
thoughts of women away from love, and give them
some healthier occupation. In France, it would be
well to stimulate the affections, because covetous-
ness, a desire of worldly position, or splendid wealth,
is the main motive to a marriage. With us, love
constitutes the whole life of many a woman; while
it may be only an episode in that of her husband.

In France, even woman seldom loves, but marries
to establish herself in life. It is against this greed
that she needs to be cautioned, not against that
emotion and sentiment which God meant should be
both a safeguard and a blessing. Love must rescue
woman from vanity, self-indulgence, and empty show.
Only through its divine power will she come to per-
ceive the true nature of that shameful bargain, by
which she surrenders what is most precious to ap-
pease the thirst of society. If we would save and
serve humanity here, we must let natural suscepti-
bilities have their full play.

At the same time, the business freedom which
women enjoy in France has led many women to
reflect thoroughly and act vigorously. The reading

276 THE COURT.

world is deluged with books relating to woman, — •
her education, her labor, and her civil rights. Out
of this condition of things spring a class who long
to share the sorrow and responsibility as well as
the joy of liberty. They will not accept the tender-
ness and pity of such men as Michelet, who veil
a profound sensualism with the graces of an affected
sentimentality. Sometimes, like George Sand, these
women break loose from social ties, test the world
for themselves, and, when they have squeezed the
orange which looked so tempting, show to others
the empty, bitter rind, and return gladly to the daily
bread of Divine Ordinance. Once, in Rosa Bonheur,
fresh and wise, energetic and vigorous, the French
woman has challenged the attention of the civilized
world. With no womanish weaknesses, frank, loyal,
and endowed with a serious and reflective nature,
this artist has asked no leave to be of church or
society. "I have no patience," she once said, ''with
women who ask permission to think. Let women
establish their claims by great and good works, and
not by conventions." She took the whole world in
her two brave woman's hands, found her inheri-
tance, and resolved to enjoy it.

It is in France, too, that Clara Demars thinks
out all the psychological relations of love and mar-
riage, and reminds us of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, by
saying that "truth will never reign over the world,
nor between the sexes, until, by being set free,
woman loses all temptation to dissimulate."

THE FRENCH LAW. 277

There, too, Flora Tristan provokes a smile by
echoing in prose the rhythmic platitudes of Mr.
Coventry Patmore, and claiming, not equalitij, but
sovereignty and autocracy, for woman.

There Pauline Roland boldly claims that marriage
shall never be tolerated, till man as well as woman
is compelled to keep the law of chastity.

There Madame Moniot claims her civil rights from
the lecturer's desk; and D^sir^ Gay, interesting her-
self practically in the question of woman's labor, rules
the women of the national workshops.

When both sides of this picture are studied; when
we look back, on the one hand, to Marie Antoinette
and Madame R^camier, and, on the other, to Madame
Roland, Madame de Stael, and Marie de Lamou-
rous, — it is not strange that the fanciful protector-
ship of such men as Michelet should be balanced by
a claim, made not only by Talleyrand, but Condorcet,
for woman's full equality as a laborer and a citi-
zen. And this varying and inconsistent estimate of
woman, made evident in the social, industrial, and
literary spheres of France, is strangely sustained by
her legal enactments. The "Code Napoleon'' is
founded on the Roman, and is very similar to the
English common law, so far as it concerns woman:
but beside this law, which is called, in reference to
married women, the dotal, there is another, called the
communal; and, before marriage, parties may choose
between these two. That contract once signed, they
must abide by theii* choice ever after. If the dotal

278 THE COURT.

law is founded on Roman law and usage, and so
came naturally enough to prevail in Southern France
until the time of the Revolution; so the communal
law prevailed at the North, and is founded on the
German habits and laws, beneath which always lay
the idea, that, if not technically a laborer, the wife,
by care and industry, — the thrift of the housewife,
— contributed to the acquisition of property.

It is very' singular that all the nations of Conti-
nental Europe, with the exception of Spain, have
rejected the dotal or Roman law. The objection to
it seems to have arisen out of the fact, that it per-
mits the wife's property to be settled solely on her-
self, and to be so secured against her husband's
debts. In the community of estates, the property
of each is liable for the debts of either. It was on
this account, probably, that, while the "Code Napo-
leon" elucidated and defined the dotal system, it
expressly provided for the right of choice in the
parties, and declared, that, if no choice were made,
they should be supposed to be living under the
German or communal law.

The Dutch law is essentially the same. When the
"Code Napoleon" came into force, there were not
wanting French legislators to say, that woman was
now better protected than ever before. But this legal
protection is of a kind due only to minors and luna-
tics. This law, like our own, suspects, not only the
intelligence of woman, but her integrity; and aims
not to protect her, but man, against her weakness or

THE FRENCH LAW. 279

fraud. In marriage, the husband administers for both,
not only the common property, but her personal pos-
sessions. That is to say, by pretending to protect ity
the law takes away from woman her personal prop-
erty. It often happyens, that a woman who has
brought her husband. a large property is compelled to
shift in narrow ways, like a beggar or a miser, on
account of his parsimony or personal ill-will.

The wife cannot give away the smallest article, not
even such as have been gifts to her: and the 934th
article of the "Code Napoleon" declares, "that the
wife may not accept a gift without the consent of her
husband; or, if he should refuse, without the appro-
bation of a magistrate." She cannot pledge their
common property, even though it were to set her hus-
band free when imprisoned for debt; nor, in the event
of his absence, to secure necessaries for his children,
without the same magisterial authority. Commonly,
this authority would be readily obtained; but it is easy
to see that many cases might arise, when, from defeated
purposes, personal enmity, or the influence of the
husband against her, it would be all but impossible.

Even in case of bankruptcy, French legislators tell
us, the rights of the wife are protected. But this
very protection is insulting; for it treats the wife as
if she must of necessity be either an inert instrument
in the hands of her husband, or a dupe, whose weak-
ness he might readily abuse. Through such protec-
tion, the dishonest merchant finds it easy to defraud
his creditors.

280 THE COURT.

Now, this "Code Napoldon" says that "the hus-
band owes protection to his wife; and the wife, on
her side, owes obedience to her husband:" but it
goes on to secure the obedience by giving an unlim-
ited right to the person of the wife, without in any
way providing the promised protection.

"The wife must live with her husband, and follow him wherever
he sees fit to go. As for him, he must receive her, and furnish
her with necessaries according to her wealth and rank."

Now, this clause actually constrains no one but the
wife; for what would be the condition of a woman
who followed her husband against his will, and re-
mained under his roof when he was determined that
she should quit it* Under such circumstances, his
recognition of her wealth and rank would be very apt
to fall to the level of his own irritation.

The French code will interfere to protect a wife
against the total loss of her property, if she can
prove some loss already experienced, either from the
improvidence or the bad conduct of her husband;
but it keeps her powerless to protect herself against
that first loss. Having thus, and for such reasons,
obtained a separate jurisdiction over her property,
she cannot alienate, mortgage, or acquire a title to
new property, without her unworthy husband's con-
sent in person or on paper. The guardianship of the
children is left to the survivor of the marriage; but
the mother's right in such case may be restrained by
the father's and husband's will. He can appoint a

THE FRENCH LAW. 281

trustee to be associated with her. As a business
woman, even if separated in estate, the wife cannot
make or dissolve a contract without the consent of
her husband.

As a "public merchant" under the communal sys-
tem,— that is, pledged in her own name, — she is free
from this restraint. As a citizen of the French repub-
lic, she in that case supports, conjointly with her hus-
band, all State charges. She is taxed as much as he;
for their common income is diminished as much for
one as for the other. She has no suffrage; but, on the
other hand, she is not liable for military service. She
has no rights; a state of things, which, if iti)e excusa-
ble when she is absorbed into her husband's person-
ality, is only absurd when she fulfils all the functions
of a citizen. Well may Degouv^ exclaim, "that, if the
household be woman's own sphere, she ought to be
queen in it; and her own faculties should secure her
this supremacy. Her opponents should be forced, on
their own principles, to emancipate her as daughter,
wife, and mother." The woman who owns an estate
is, under this law, sole mistress of it. She signs the
leases and makes the bargains. She pays the State
tax, an additional rate to her own department, a town
tax, and a tax on roads. It is with her that the local
or general government treat, if they cut through her
estate for public ends. Against them, if wronged, she
herself carries suit. By her influence as a proprietor,
she controls many votes; yet she is not permitted to
cast one. She cannot directly control the position of

282 THE COURT-

the ver>' representative who imposes her taxes. She
is in the same position with regard to all the higher
officers, who decide such questions as affect the value
of her estate. As citizen, therefore, under the com-
munal law, her position is uncertain and contradic-
tory.

So much for the estimate of woman in France;
and so much for the rights of proi)erty, of marriage,
and of suffrage, founded upon that estimate. What
is her a'nl position? what office or employment is
open to her? Women are lx»tter off in France, it is
again said, than ever before. As merchants, fair
chances, barred by some contradictions and anoma-
lies, await them; but whoever ponders their condition
cannot fail to see, that here, as elsewhere, the protec-
tion afforded by the law is merely the vigilance of a
police officer, which protects the criminal, not for her
own sake, but for that of society, which her very ex-
istence is supposed to endanger.

The most desirable amelioration of her lot will
be secured by the admission of her free personality.
When society strikes out from the statute-book all
distinctions of sex, and admits that she is a person
capable of thinking and acting for herself, she will
lay the foundation of a new civilization.

In France, we are told, women sometimes fill pub-
lic functions. They may be postmistresses, and in-
spectors of schools; or they may take charge of the
bureaus of wood or tobacco. They may also be
inspectors of public asylums, — a right and a duty

THE FRENCH LAW. 283

of very great importance. As a public functionary,
woman fills few and infcFior posts; but in these she
exercises and possesses all the rights of a man, with
one exception, — ^that exception, alas! the very key-
stone on which all human success must rest: I mean,
the right of promotion. Do not smile, prompted by
an unworthy apprehension of my meaning. It is not
because women are more greedy or more ambitious
than men that I call the right to promotion the
keystone of their success. Only small and narrow
natures can be content in a treadmill. If constant
motion will not carry her over the top of the wheel,
instinct prompts the reasoning creature to abate her
efforts. No man of his own free will turns into a
road which abuts upon a stone wall. The State
turnpike is better, where the wayfarer may die by
a sunstroke, or perish of a frost; where endless miles
stretch over uncultivated wastes: better; for here, at
least, the way is open, the sky overhead.

Before proceeding to speak of the English common
law, it will perhaps be well to turn from the *'Code
Napoleon" to the law of Louisiana, in which the influ-
ence of the two forms of French law still shows itself.
I do not consider the laws of Canada, because they
are complicated, not only by the English common
law, but by Canadian statutes, somewhat in the
spirit of our own recent enactments, and by curious
archaeological remains of feudal law, — laws which
would sound like the decrees of Haroun al Raschid,
were I to tax your soberness by setting them before

284 THE COURT.

you. They are, let us be thankful, of small practical
importance, as is the great body of all law,*

In Louisiana, according to the civil code of 1824,
the partnership of gains arising during coverture
exists by law in every marriage, without express
stipulation to the contrary. But the parties may
regulate their married obligations as they please,
provided they do nothing immoral. The wife's prop-
erty is "dotal." What she bringsj her paraphernalia,
is '* extra-dot al." The dowry belongs to the husband
during marriage; and he has the administration of
the partnership, and may alienate his revenue, with-
out his wife's consent: but he cannot convey the
common estate. If, before marriage, he should stipu-
late that there should be no partnership, his wife
preserves the entire control of her own property.
Her heirs take her separate estate; even money re-
ceived by her husband on her account. If there be
no agreement as to the exjjenses, the wife contributes
one-half of her income. Her landed estate, whether
dotal or not, is not affected by his debts. She is a
privileged creditor, and has the first mortgage on
his property.

If the parties have agreed to the ''partnership of
gains," the common property is liable for the debts

♦ The great body of all law is of small practical importance, because, in
spite of the five points of Calvinism and the long faces of many bearded phi-
losophers, the majority of mankind not only obey the law, but transcend it, — do
better than it requires. It is only the few who transgress; and thus many
absurdities are never or ver>- rarely dragged into the light of a "decision."

THE FRENCH LAW. 285

of either. On the death of either party, one-half of
the property goes to the survivor; the other, to the
heirs of the dead partner.

You will perceive that this law seems a loose
mixture of the Roman or dotal system with the
German communal law, based on the partnership
of gains; but the common law takes it for granted
that the partnership exists, where there is no express
stipulation to the contrary. As a public trader, the
wife may bind herself in whatever relates to her
business, without her husband's consent — may even
make a will; and reference is made to the "Code
Napol^n," in the same way, to all appearance, that
we refer to the common law of England.

The estimate of woman upon which the "Code
Napol^n" is founded has the same effect upon her
earnings as the English common law. As, in mar-
riage, the policy has been to keep her subordinate and
inferior; to give her no privileges which should lead
to independence: so, in business, the effect of the
law is to keep the price of her work down, and
give her as ^few escapes from household drudgery
as may be; to offer her, in fact, no temptation to
escape.

As polishers, burnishers, and copper-workers; as
glove-makers, enamellers, and wire-drawers; as flax-
beaters and soakers; as spinners, gauze-workers, and
winders; as basket-makers, and temperers of steel;
as knife-handlers, embroiderers, and wheel-turners; as
velvet-makers, cockle-gatherers, and ivory-workers; as

286. THE COURT.

packers, knitters, satin-makers, and folders; as picture-
colorers, and workers in wood; as casters, weighers,
and varnishers; as shoe-makers, strap-makers, lace-
makers, and cocoon-winders, — the French employ
many women; and the estimate of the law is prac-
tically indicated, there as well as here, in the price
of the labor done.

The highest wages marked upon mj^ list are those
paid to the workers in a porcelain factory, who re-
ceived one franc and fifty centimes a day, or thirty
cents. The lowest are those paid to cockle-gatherers
and lace-makers; that is, from twenty to twenty-five
centimes, or from four to five cents a day.

The fact that the poor lace-makers, who lose their
eyesight and their lives bending over their bobbins,
are paid the same wages as the loitering girls who
pick up gay cockles on the beach, shows how little
the price of the labor dejx^nds on the value of the
work done, and tells the whole story in a breath.
The wages of the needlewomen of Paris have been
diminishing ever since 1847, and, according to the
** Revue des Deux Mondes," now average only from
twenty t6 twenty-five cents a day.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 287

II.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW.

"And we, perusing o'er these notes,
May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable."

King John.

IN approaching the subject of English common
law, we come nearer to our own special interests.
Twenty years ago, I am safe, I think, in presuming
that this law was the basis of all our lejrislation in
regard to woman, if we except that in French or
Spanish territory; and, in criticising its provisions, I
shall criticise all that is objectionable, whether in the
laws that have been changed, or in the laws that
remain to be changed, in our own States.

If we were to examine the literature of England
with reference to this subject, we should probably
find from the beginning many protests against the
present position of woman. It is never safe, for in-
stance, to assume what poets may or may not have
said. If Dryden could get so far as to say that there
is "no sex in souls," one would think the gentle
Chaucer and heavenly-minded Daniel doubtless dis-
cerned still deeper things; but of lawyers we may
say with some truth, that their early protests were so
quietly made as scarcely to be recognized, or were

288 THE COURT.

made for the most part by unread and anonymous
writers.

In the "Lawe's Resolution of Woman's Rights,"
published in the year of 1632, there seems to be a
distinct recognition of the true nature of the law: —

"The next thing that I will show you," says the author, "is
this particularity of law. In this consohdation which we call
wedlock is a locking together. It is true, that man and wife are
one person; but understand in what manner. When a small
brooke or little river incoqwrateth with Rhodanus, Humber, or
the Thames, the |X)ore rivulet looseth her name; it is carrietl and
recarried with the new a.ssociate; it beareth no sway; it iwssesseth
nothing during coverture. A woman, as soon as she is married,
is called covert; in Latine, nupta, — that is, 'veiled;' as it were,
cloude<l and overshadowed: she hath lost her streame. I may
more truly, farre away, say to a married woman, Her new self
is her superior; her companion, her master."

Still farther: "Eve, because she had helped to seduce her
husband, hiul inflicted upon her a special bane. See here the
reiu^on of that which I touched before, — that women have no
voice in Parliament. They make no laws, they consent to none,
they abrogate none. All of them are understood either married
or to be married, and their desires are to their husbands. I
know no remedy, that some women can shift it well enough.
The common lawc here shaketh hand with divinitye."

In this plain statement of the old black-letter book
lies the root of the evil with which we contend: "All
of them are married or to bee married, and their
desires are to their husbands." Woman, single, wid-
owed, or pursuing an independent vocation, never

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 289

seems to have entered the head of the law, as a pos-
sible monster worth providing for. The world of
that day believed in the sea-serpent, but not in her.
This book, "The Lawe's Resolution of the Rights of
Woman," was, so far as I know, first brought under
our notice by Mrs. Bodichon's quotation, in her
"Brief Summary of the English Law." Then a few
copies found their way to this country, and into the
hands of curious persons. People began to wonder
who wrote the quaint old book. In pleading before
our own Legislature in the spring of 1858, I was
myself asked by the committee who was its author;
and I think it but right to rescue from oblivion the
probable name of this early friend to woman and
justice. It is always difficult to trace an anonymous
book, and, this time, more difficult than usual, as it
was probably published after its author's death.

Sir John Doderidge, to whom my attention was di-
rected by an eminent antiquarian, was an able lawyer,
and an industrious compiler of law-books of a special
kind. He was from Devonshire, and admitted as a
barrister in 1603. He was successively appointed
Solicitor-General, Judge of the Common Pleas and
of the King's Bench. Among the works known to
be his, yet not commonly included in the list of his
works, are the "Lawyer's Light," published in 1629;
and "The Complete Parson," with the laws relating
to advowsons and livings, in 1670, — books of the
same class, character, and appearance as the "Lawe's
Resolution."

23

290 THE COURT.

As he died in 1628, I was at first inclined to suspect
the fairness of this inference: but a further examina-
tion showed that all his publications were 'posthu-
mous; which accounts, perhaps, for the candor of their
covert satire. A few particulars of his life and stand-
ing may be gained from the new Life of Lord Bacon,
where Hepworth Dixon says that ''the Solicitor-
Generalship, vacant once more, is given, over Francis
Bacon's head, to Sir John Doderidge, Serjeant of the
Coif." In 1606, when Sir Francis Gawdy dies,
"Coke goes up to the bench; and Doderidge, the
Solicitor-General, ought, by the custom of the law,
to follow Coke, leaving the post of Solicitor void:
but Cecil raises Sir Henry Hobart, his obscure Attor-
ney of the Court of Wards, over both Doderidge
and Bacon's head, to the high place of Attorney-
General." Since that day, Bentham and Catharine
Macaulay, Mary WoUstonecraft, and John Stuart
Mill, have made the same complaint; sustaining it,
however, by vigorous argument for woman's full
emancipation, and a demand for the right of suf-
frage.

Let us look at this English law. So far as it
affects single women, it is very simple.

A single woman has the same rights of property as
a man; that is, she may get and keep, or dispose of,
whatever she can. She has a right, like man, to the
protection of the law, and has to pay the same taxes
to the State.

''Duly qualified," she may vote on parish questions

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 291

and for parish officers; and "duly qualified,'* in Eng-
land, means that she shall have a certain amount of
property, and so a vested interest in the prosperity
of her parish. If her parents die without a will, she
shares equally with her brothers in the division of the
personal property; but her eldest brother and his
issue, even if female, will take the real estate as heirs-
at-law. If she be an only child, she inherits both
personal and real, and becomes immediately that most
pitiable of creatures, an heiress.

The church and all state offices are closed to women.
They find some employment in rural post-offices; but
there is no important office they can hold, if we ex-
cept that of sovereign. This is sometimes spoken of
as an inconsistency; but if we reflect upon the posi-
tion of a constitutional sovereign, whose speeches are
the work of her minister, and whose actions indicate
the average conscience of a cabinet council, we shall
find her legally but very little more independent than
other women technically classed with minors and
idiots.

There have been a few women governors of pris-
ons, overseers of the poor, and parish clerks; but
public opinion still effectually bars most women from
seeking or accepting office.

The office of Grand Chamberlain was filled by two
women in 1822. That of Clerk of the Crown, in
the Court of Queen's Bench, has been granted to a
female; and, in a certain parish of Norfolk, a woman
was recently appointed parish clerk, because, in a

292 THE COURT.

population of six hundred souls, no man could be
found able to read and write!

In an action at law, it has been determined that an
unmarried woman, having a freehold, might vote for
members of Parliament. Mr. Higginson tells us that
a certain Lady Packington returned two.

In all periods, there have been women who have
held exceptional positions, under peculiar influence of
wealth or rank or circumstances; and though this
has not affected the position of other women, or given
them any more freedom, yet it is valuable in itself,
because it has kept the possibility of their employment
always open, and acted like a practical protest against
the law.

The Countess of Pembroke was hereditary Sheriff
of Westmoreland, and exercised her office. In the
reign of Queen Anne, Lady Rous did the same, "girt
with a sword." Henry VIII. once granted a com-
mission of inquiry, under the great seal, to Lady Anne
Berkeley, who opened it at Gloucester, and passed
sentence under it.

Some of the old legal writers averred, that a woman
might serve in almost anj' of the great offices of the
kingdom. Lately we find it stated that a woman may
be elected as constable, since she can hire a v\an to
serve for her; but she may not be elected overseer
of the poor, because, in this case, substitution, if not
impossible, would be difficult!

What were the peculiar political excitements which
enabled Lady Packington to return two members of

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 293

Parliament, we are not told; but it is quite certain
that women of twenty-one, duly qualified, cannot and
do not vote for members of Parliament by virtue of
that decision. In rural districts, where personal influ-
ence weighed a good deal, such a vote might be
courteously winked at. A woman of property and
standing, in Nova Scotia, has in this manner, for
more than forty years, cast her annual vote, without
rebuke or interruption; but, should any number of
women act on this precedent, a legal restraint would
doubtless be laid.

No single woman, having been seduced, has any
remedy at common law; neither has her mother nor
next friend. If her father can prove service rendered,
he may sue for loss of service.

In what "bosom of divinitye" does this law rest?
Here is a remedy for the loss of a few hours, but no
penalty held up in terrorem, to warn man that he may
not trifle with honor, womanly purity, and childish
ignorance or innocence.

In the eye of this law, female chastity is only valu-
able for the work it can do. It must not be thought,
however, that the English common law stands alone
in this moral deformity. Under the French law, fe-
male chastity does not seem of any worth, even in
consideration of the work it can do. In honest indig-
nation, Legouv^ exclaims, —

"Let a man, who has seduced a child of fifteen years by a
promise of marriage, be brought before a magistrate. He has

294 THE COURT.

under the law a right to say, 'There is my signature, it is true;
but I deny it. A debt of the heart is void before the law.'"

Thus everywhere, in practice and theory, in society
and in law, for rich and poor, is public purity aban-
doned,— the bridle thrown upon the neck of all rest-
ive and depraved natures.

Manufacturers seduce their work-people; the heads
of workshops refuse to employ girls who will not sell
themselves, soul and body, to them; masters corrupt
their servants. Out of 5,083 lost women counted by
Duchdtelet at Paris in 1830, there were 285 domestic
servants seduced, and afterwards dismissed by their
employers. Commission-merchants, officers, students,
deceive the poor girls from the province or the coun-
try, drag them to Paris, and leave them to perish.
At all the great centres of industr>', as at Rheims and
at Lille, are societies organized to recruit the houses
of sin in Paris.

This is well known to be true of all the large Eng-
lish towns; yet the law is powerless, and philanthropy
interferes with no other result than that of driving
these societies from one post to another. .

Can women be expected to believe that the law
would be powerless, if there were a sound public
opinion behind it to sustain the law; if there were
any desire on the part of the majority of men that it
should be sustained? "Punish the young girl, if you
will," continued Legouvd; "but punish also the man
who has ruined her. She is already punished, — pun-
ished by desertion, punished by dishonor, punished

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 296

by remorse, punished by nine months of suffering,
punished by the charge of a child to be reared. Let
him, then, be struck in his turn. If not, it is no longer
public modesty that you defend: it is the 'lord para-
mount,* the vilest of the rights of the 'seigneur.'"

In the laws which regard single women, we object,
then, —

1. To the withholding of the elective franchise.

2. To the law's preference of males, and the issue
of males, in the division of estates.

3. We object to the estimate of woman which the
law sustains, which shuts her out from all public em-
ployment, for many branches of which she is better
fitted than man.

4. We object to that estimate of woman's chastity
which makes its existence or non-existence of impor-
tance only as it affects the comfort or income of man.

We do not mean that the present interpretation of
the common law does not sometimes show a more
liberal estimate than the law itself, but rather that the
existence of this law, unrepealed, unchristianized, is a
forcible restraint up>on the progress of society.

'* A legal fiction," says Maine in his "Ancient Law,"
** signifies any assumption which conceals, or affects to
conceal, the fact, that a rule of law has undergone
alteration, its letter remaining unchanged, while its
operation is modified." Such fictions may be useful
in the infancy of society; but, like absurd formulas
and embarrassing technicalities, they should give way
before advancing common sense, before the diffusion

296 THE COURT.

of' general intelligence and a common-school system,
which is destined to qualify the humblest man for a
full understanding of the law under which he lives.

We have now to consider the laws concerning mar'
ried women. **0n whatsoever branch of jurispru-
dence may lie the charge," says a late reviewer, "of
working the heaviest sum of suffering, perhaps we
shall not err in saying that the sharpest and cruellest
pangs are those which have been inflicted by our
marriage-laws." In making our abstracts, we have
need to avoid the absurd complications which confuse,
not only simple-minded people, but lawyers them-
selves; and, to avoid any charge of ignorance or
mistake, we will, as far as possible, adopt the lan-
guage of Mrs. Bodichon's "Summary," which has
stood for six years before the English public without
impeachment.

We shall not discuss the question, as to what con-
stitutes fitness for marriage in the eye of the law. In
Scotland and in England, the consent of the parties is
said to be the "essence of marriage;" but, alas! in
how many cases is this "consent" taken for granted
only, it being, in fact, the most baseless of legal fic-
tions!

In commenting on the English law as compared
with the Scotch, the reviewer adds, "A code so un-
satisfactory, so unsettled, and by every alteration com-
ing so palpably near to their own system, is one which
Scotchmen may be pardoned for declining further to
consider, and which certainly they cannot be expected

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 297

to recognize as the model to which their own should
be conformed."

The rule of the English law was, at the institu-
tion of the Divorce Court, that the wife should have
the same domicile as her husband, and that within
English territory. A dishonest domicile barred her
claim to divorce; and the husband who abandoned
his wife, and fixed his residence abroad, effectually
bound her to him. Justice has of late been done,
because it was justice, heedless of the question of
domicile.

There are in relation to this subject many provisions
which wrong men and women alike; and, if there
are any which especially wrong woman, they wrong
man in a still higher degree through her. As an
example of the former class, we may take the im-
possibility of release from a hopelessly insane partner,
which makes the point of the wonderful story of
"Jane Eyre."

Now, several things are quite evident to the eye
of common sense: —

First, That the insane partner should be properly
provided for during life, in the upper classes, by the
sane partner; in the lower, by the parish or state.

Second, That as it is a sin against God and society
to bring children into the world, born of a hopelessly
insane parent; so, on the other hand, it is a sin
against God and society to compel any man or
woman to a life of hopeless celibacy.

Third, That, if the law does use this compulsion,

298 THE COURT.

it is responsible for the vicious connections that in-
evitably grow out of it; ''car les rnauvaises lois pro-
duisent les mauvaises moeurs.'^* I should not turn
aside from my main point to consider this, even for
a moment, if it were not a striking instance of the
want of common sense which afflicts the common
law, and if I had not in my own experience been
made aware of its frightful results. Within the limits
of one small parish in the city of Toronto, Canada
West, I found four instances in which men of the
middle class had taken the right of divorce into
their own hands, and were illegally married a second
time. These persons, if not markedly religious, were
respectable, orderly members of society, living prop-
erly in their families, supporting the wives they had
left, and justifying the course they had taken. Two
of them had left England on account of the hope-
less insanitv of their wives, and two on account

♦ A curious instanre of the immoral result of holding marriage sacramental,
and indissoluble under all circumstances, comes within my personal experience
while I am correcting these pages for the press, Oct. 11, 1861.

A young Catholic girl was divorced some years ago, immediately after mar-
riage, on account of the bad conduct of her husband. She was received into
the family of a hrother-in-Iaw, in ever>- way highly respectable. For the last
two years, she has been courted by an officer in the navy of the United States;
but nowhere in New England could a Catholic priest be found willing to marry
them. The church still holds her responsible to her first vows. The officer
honestly desired to marr>' her; but the natural result of her ignorance and per-
plexity followed. Expecting to become a mother, and rejected by her family,
she came to me for advice. As the officer is a Protestant, I reeommended that
they should be married by a minister of that faith. She again consulted her
priest, and was told that it was less sinful for her to remain in her present rela-
tion to her lover than to receive a sacrament from unholy hands; the priest
ignoring utterly the legal protection and maintenance which she might thus
receive.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 299

of their hopeless immorality; the latter, eases in
which the law would have granted a divorce, but
at an expense which the husband could not pay.
When I first heard this account of one person, I
resented it as a slander, and went to console the
afflicted wife, who was overwhelmed by the sup-
posed rumor.

The husband met me at the door, with an honest,
unabashed, but distressed face. "Don't deny it to
her," said he. "I never committed but one sin, and
that was when I kept it from her. She was a sweet,
pious creature; and I feared she would not consent."

This man told me that he sent six hundred dollars
yearly to his insane wife ; that this kept her better than
he could afford to keep himself and his family: "but,"
said he, "her station was always higher than mine."

In the other cases, the men had told their stories,
and the wives had consented to the arrangement.
It is obvious, that, if a wife wished to withdraw from
a husband in this manner, she could not do it, on
account of property restrictions, and the common
unfitness for self-support.*

In the marriage of a minor, the consent of the
father, or of a guardian appointed by him, is neces-

* The only exciue for considering this point, in an esaay pleading especially
for women, is that the law bears unequally on the two sexes; pressing hardest
on woman, on account of her pecuniary dependence, and general subordination
to man.

A woman, every reader will understand, would find it impossible to free
herself from her obligations, like the men referred to in the text; nor is it desir-
able that she should free hertelf, but that the law should free her.

300 THE COURT.

sary, but not that of the mother: another indication
of the estimate the law puts upon woman, as com-
pared with man; and this estimate, whenever and
wherever it shows itself, has the effect to depress
every woman's desire to fit herself to be a good
citizen; and, when she fails in citizenship, man must
fail also, as is ably shown by De Tocqueville.

"A hundred times in the course of my life," he
says, ''I have seen weak men display public virtue
because they had beside them wives who sustained
them in this course, not by counselling this or that
action in particular, but by exercising a fortifying in-
fluence on their views of duty and ambition. Oftener
still, I have seen domestic influence operating to
transform a man, naturally generous, noble, and un-
selfish, into a cowardly, vulgar, and ambitious self-
seeker, who thought of his country's affairs only to
see how they could be turned to his own private
comfort or advancement; and this simply by daily
contact with an honest woman, a faithful wife, a
devoted mother, from whose mind the grand notion
of public duty was entirely absent."*

A man and wife are one person in law: a wife
loses all her rights as a single woman. Her husband
is legally responsible for her acts: so she is said to
live under his cover. A woman's body belongs to her
husband. She is in his custody, and he can enforce
his right by a writ of habeas corpus.

♦ National Rev.. Apr. 1861, pp. 291, 292.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 301

This last is one of the points in which the public
feeling is so far before the law, that the latter could
never be wholly enforced.

If a woman were unlawfully restrained of her
liberty, her husband might take advantage of a habeas
corpus to get possession of her; but it is not probable
that any court, in England or this country, would
now grant one to compel a wife to live with her
husband against her will. Still, the estimate of the
marriage relation which such laws sustain is so
low, that one never can tell what will happen.

In the year 1858, a curious but unintentional satire
on the judicial position of the husband occurred in
one of the London courts. A delicate, much-abused
woman, unmarried, but who had been, in her own
phrase, "living for some time" with a man, brought
an action against him for assault. Erysipelas had
inflamed her wounds, and endangered her life.

"Had she died, sirrah," said the magistrate, ad-
dressing the criminal, "you must have taken your
trial for murder. What have you to say in your
defence?"

"I was in liquor, sir," pleaded the man. "I gave
her some money to go to market. I told her to look
sharp; but she was gone more than an hour, your
worship: so, when she came back, I — I was in
liquor, your honor."

The magistrate leaned over his desk, and, speaking
in the most impressive manner, thus endeavored to
cut short the defence: —

302 THE COITRT.

"This woman is not your slave, man. She is
not accountable to you for every moment of her
time. She is not," he continued with increasing
fervor, but a growing embarrassment, — ''she is not
— she is not" —

He paused; but the throng of wretched women
who crowded the court interpreted the pause aright,
and were not likely to forget the lesson.

A suppressed titter ran through the court: for every
married man knew that the words, ''she is not your
wife," were those which had sprung naturally to
the worthy magistrate's lips; and must have passed
them, had not honest shame prevented.

The man then attempted to defend himself on
the ground of jealousy: but this was instantly set
aside; the unmistakable impression left on the mind
of the court-room being, that the illegality of the
relation was wholly in the woman's favor.

Since the war, f reed-women at Beaufort, S. C, have
refused marriage for this very reason.

Women long ago understood this, and literary
gossip gives us a late instance in a maiden aunt
of Sir Charles Morgan. This woman, descended
from Morgan the buccaneer, has more than once
turned the scales of an Irish election. When she
once arrested a robber on her own premises, and
held him fast till the arrival of an officer, the gen-
tlemen of the neighborhood advised her not to prose-
cute.

"It is well known," they argued, "that you refuse

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 303

to employ a single man on your premises, and you
may be marked out for the revenge of the gang."

"Justice is justice," she exclaimed in reply; "and
the villain shall go hang!"

It was quite natural that we should find this
woman telling Lady Caroline Lamb that no man
should ever have legal rights over her, or her prop-
erty. A wife's money, jewels, and clothes become
absolutely her husband's; and he may dispose of
them as he pleases, whether he and his wife live
together or not. Her chattels real — that is, estates
held for a term of years — and presentations of
church livings become absolutely his; but, if she
survives him, she may resume them.

Under such a common law as this, it is not sur-
prising to find something needed which is called
equity. Therefore, if a wife, on her marriage, gives
all her property to her husband, the said equity
(Heaven save the mark!) will, under certain circum-
stances, oblige him to make a settlement upon her.
That is, when the wife has an interest in property
which can only be reached by the husband through
a court of equity, that court will aid him to enjoy
it, only on condition that such part as it thinks proper
shall be settled on the wife.

The civil courts in England cannot compel a man
to support his wife: that is left to the action of the
church, and her own parish.

A husband has a freehold estate in his wife's
lands as long as they both live.

304 THE COURT.

/

Money earned by a married woman belongs abso-
lutely to her husband.

By her husband's particular permission, she may
make a will; but he may revoke his permission at
any time before probate, — that is, before the will
is exhibited and proved, — even if ajter the wife's
death.

The custody of a child belongs to the father. The
mother has no right of control. The father may
dispose of it as he sees fit. If there be a legal
separation, and no special order of the court, the
custody of. the children (except the nutriment of
infants) belongs legally to the father.

Except the nutriment of infants! Here is a hint
from the good God himself. Should we not think,
that the first time these words were written down,
and men were compelled to see the natural depend-
ence of the child upon the mother, — to detect the
obvious laws of nurture, natural and spiritual, —
the right of a good mother to her child would have
made itself clear?

Yet, to this day, there are many States of our
own Union where a mother can better authenticate
her right to a negro slave than to the young daugh-
ter who is bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh!

If the direct influence of Christianity did not, in
some measure, modify the influence of the law in
social life, there would be no such thing as a mother's
exercising maternal authority over a son. No matter
how wise, how old, how experienced, she may be.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 305

she never possesses, in the eye of the law, the dig-
nity of a boy who has just attained his majority.
Sufficiently instructed in legal maxims, he can always
resist her, under the influence of the most besotted
or unprincipled of fathers.

The word of a married woman is not binding in
law, and persons who give her credit have no remedy
against her.

The moral results of such a law are sufficiently
obvious, not only in England, but in our own coun-
try. The statute-book does not, cannot, stand ab-
solved, because public opinion in the present day
abhors and contemns the woman who assists her hus-
band to defraud his creditors, or takes refuge from
her own debts behind this disgraceful cover. Yet, if
the law gives her husband her property, it ought
surely to hold him responsible for her debts. And
this is what society calls protection!

As a wife is always presumed to be under the
control of her husband (numerous instances to the
contrary notwithstanding), she is not considered
guilty of any crime which she commits in his pres-
ence.

When a woman has consented to a proposal of
marriage, she cannot give away the smallest thing.
If she does so without her betrothed husband's con-
sent, the gift is illegal; and, after marriage, he may
avoid it as a fraud on him : a strong temptation to any
woman, one would think, to give away her all. You
see here what estimate the law puts on property, as

24

306 THE COURT.

an inducement to marriage. This provision evidently
grew out of the exigencies of the time, when mar-
riage among the Anglo-Saxons was a pure matter of
bargain.

As a protection against the common law, it is
usual to have some settlement of property made
upon the wife; and, in respect to this property, the
courts of equity regard her as a single woman. Such
settlements are ver>' intricate, and should be made by
an experienced lawyer.

The wife's property ])elonging to the husband,
should her scissors, thimble, or petticoats be stolen,
the indictment must describe either of these articles
as his!

Of divorce it is only necessar>' to say, that a di-
vorce from the bonds of matrimony in England could
be obtained only by act of Parliament; the right of
investigation resting with the House of Lords alone.
Until the passage of the New Divorce Bill, only three
such divorces had ever been granted to a woman's
petition. The expense of the most ordinar>' bill was
between three and four thousand dollars.

Nor need we dwell long on such laws as relate to
widows. You may be interested to hear, that, after
her husband's death, the widow recovers her right to
her own clothes and jewels; also that the law does
not compel her to bur>' him, that being the duty of
his legal representative.

The indignation which we might naturally feel at
the suggestion that a wife could forsake her unburied

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 307

dead, cools a little as the law goes on to state, that a
husband can, of course, deprive a wife of all share in
his personal estate. Very graciously, also, the widow
is permitted to remain forty days in her husband's
house, provided that she does not re-marry within that
time!

The result of a great deal of reading of a great
many law-books is only this, — that we are more
firmly convinced than ever, that the most necessary
reform is a simple erasure from the statute-book of
whatever recognizes distinctions of sex. You should
make woman, in the eye of the law, what she has
always been in the eye of God, — a responsible hu-
man being; and make laws which such beings, male
or female, can obey.

Even Christian, in his edition of Blackstone, said
long ago, that there was no reason why civil rights
should be refused to single women. In every respect
but this, the single woman is independent; but let
her take to herself a husband, and the law steps in to
protect her, and she finds herself in a position of
what is called "reasonable restraint." He may give
her, says Blackstone, moderate correction; he may
adopt any act of coercion that does not endanger
life; he may beat her, but not violently. She may,
by her labor, support him: but she cannot prevent
him from bestowing her earnings, should he happen
to die, upon those who have most wronged her in
life; his mistress, it may be, or his illegitimate chil-
dren. Do you tell me that men of good feeling never

308 THE COURT.

act on such laws? Why, then, should men of good
feeling be unwilling to wipe them from the statute-
book?

For the most part, it is upon women of the lower
class that the property-laws most hardly press. It
was the suffering of this class, years ago, when the
common law of Massachusetts was the same as that
of England, that first roused my interest, and excited
my indignation; but the story which the Hon. Mrs.
Norton tells us shows that this class of women are
not the only sufferers.

"I have learnecl the law piecemeal," she says, *by suflFering all
it could inflict. I forgave my husband's wickedness again and
again, and found t<M) late, that, in the eye of the law, practical
ChrLstianity. the forgiving unto seventy times seven, was a condo-
nation which deprivetl me of all protection. My children were
stolen from nie, and put into the vilest custody, where one of them
afterwards died for want of a mother's conmionest care. My hus-
band brought an action against his kindest friend, of whom he bor-
rowc<i money and received office. The jurj- listened with disgust,
and gave their verdict against him. Then I was told that I might
tiritc for my bread, or my family might supixjrt me. My chil-
dren were kept away, as their residence with me would make him
liable for my debts.

"When my mother dietl, and left me, through my brother, a
small income, he balanced the first pajinent by arbitrarily stop-
ping his own allowance. For the last three years, I have not
received a farthing from him. He retains all my personal prop-
erty which was left in his home, the gifts of the royal family on
my marriage, articles bought with my own earnings, and presents
from Lord Melbourne. He receives from mv trustees the income

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 309

which my father bequeathed to me, which the 'non-existent*
wife must resign to the 'existent' husband. •

"I have also the power of earning by literature; but even this
power, the gift of God, not the legacy of man, bears fruit only for
him. Let him subpeena my publishers, and enjoy his triumph:
he has shown me that I was not meant to wTite novels and tales,
but to rouse the nation against such men as he, and such laws
as they sustain. Let him eat the bread I earn; but it shall be
bought with the price of his own exposure. If law will not listen
to me, to literature I will devote my power, and secure for others
what I have not been able to secure for myself."

No wonder that provident parents circumvent such
a common law by a settlement before marriage!
There is no chance for a partnership of gains or losses
in England.

As we have already said, all sexual laws ought to
be wiped off the statute-book; but the Hungarian law
which was in force until 1849, when the German law
was introduced into Hungary, is a comment on the
absurdity of the English.

"No countrywoman of mine," said a proud sister
of Kossuth, "would ever submit to such a marriage
settlement as is common in England." In Hungary,
inherited property could not be devised by will, and
all unmarried women were considered minors. As
soon as she married, a woman came of age, and into
the full control of her estates. She could make a
will, and sign deeds; and was not responsible for her
husband's debts or the family expenses. As a widow,

310 THE COURT.

she was guardian of her children, and administrator
on her husband's property. So long as she bore his
name, she could exercise all his political rights. She
could vote in the county elections, and for depu-
ties to the Diet. Trained up under such a law,
what could the Hungarian woman think who found
herself for the first time in the power of the English
law?

Among the refugees whom the misfortunes of a
leading Hungarian family drove to these shores was
one woman of the highest natural gifts, the best so-
cial station. She was married to a man, handsome,
accomplished, and reckh'ss. but hardly patriotic enough
to have need to Hy with her. In the city of New York
she opened a l)oarding-house of the highest class, by
which she strove to support her.«^elf and her children.
A fascinating hostess, a skilful manager, she suc-
ceeded, as might be expected. Soon her improvident
husl)and followed her. At first, he did not attempt to
annoy her; but. in time, some one was found cruel
enough to expound to him the English common law.
He stared, refused to believe; but finally entered his
wife's house, seizeil her earnings, compelled her board-
ers to pay their money into his hands, stripped her of
all power to pay her rent and provide for her family,
and then took himself off, enraptured, doubtless, with
his brief experience of English and American liberty.
Stripped of peace, position, and property, the injured
wife had no longer courage to struggle. In under-
hand ways, to evade the unjust law, her personal

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 311

friends settled her upon a little farm, where her shat-
tered hopes found a short repose.

A few years ago, an American woman of captivat-
ing address gained great reputation in Paris as a
milliner. She had a profligate husband, whom she
invited to tea every Sunday, supplying him at that
time with a sum for his weekly expenses. In an evil
day, seduced by promises of high patronage, she went
to London. She was very successful; but in a few
months her husband surprised her, seized all she pos-
sessed, and, turned adrift on the streets, she went back
to a country where the law would protect her industry.
Marriage has been sought only to legalize a theft, —
to apply the words of Wendell Phillips, when ''union
was robbery. ^^ A respectable servant, who had laid by
a considerable sum, was sought in marriage by an
apparently suitable person. On the day before the
marriage, she put her bank-book into his hands. After
the ceremony, he said to her, "I am not well in health,
and do not feel "equal to supporting a family: you
had better go back to service." Naturally indignant,
she responded, "Give me, then, my bank-book." —
**I am too feeble to spare the money," he replied.
She went back to service, and has never seen him
since; but, of course, she has been often obliged to
change her name and residence to protect herself from
a long succession of extortions.

We see thus, that if a woman is able to conquer
her fate, and to gain a livelihood in spite of a disso-
lute or incompetent husband, her home is not her own.

312 THE COURT.

Her husband's foily may, at any moment, deprive her
children of bread.

I have said that there was no woman so pitiable as
an heiress. I said it advisedly. I thought of the long
persecution she must bear from unwelcome suitors, —
of all appreciation of her personality, ever so lovely
or gifted or individual, sunk, as it must l>e, in the mire
of her money.

Mrs. Reid says, justly, that this money is not so
much her own as a perquisite attached to her person
for the benefit of her future husband; the larger por-
tion of which will eventually pa.ss to his heirs, whether
of her blood or not. If forced from ill treatment to
leave his roof, the law will return her but a scanty
pittance.

The nature of the law itself, and that estimate of
woman on which it is based, are so identical, that we
are compelled, as we turn over its pages, to treat
thest^ two points as one.

"For one-half the human race,'^ said Mrs. Reid
years ago, "the highest end of civilization is to cling
like a weed upon a wall;" a curious instance of the
power that the use of language has over a fact.
There is nothing captivating in clinging like a "weed
to a wall;" but most women are satisfied to hang
like the "vine about the oak."

It is a great misfortune, that this estimate of woman
not only governs the courts in their decisions, but en-
ters into and moulds all the movements of society.
Such an estimate leads to constant contradictions;

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 313

being, as it is, directly the opposite of the fact in so
many cases, and of the Divine Will in all. In a book
on women recently published by a lawj^er in England,
I found a pithy paragraph to this point, concluding
some observations on the comparative longevity of the
sexes: "The wife," he says, ''fitly survives the hus-
handy both to take care of his premature infirmity, and
to consummate the rearing of their offspring"! — a
creative effort of the imagination which certainly en-
titles the writer to the laurels of the century.

One reason that the wages of women are kept
down is, that, for the most part, women do not begin
to labor early; do not devote themselves in youth to
any trade 6r profession, so as to compete with men
who have. The plodding and steady habits of the
man of business, he has acquired in his early years;
and they are developed by the fact, that he is sole
master of what he can earn, and can dispose of it as
he thinks proper: but his wife has been brought up
in no such school, — has no such motive to industry.
Should she toil on for ever, she cannot possess what
she acquires, nor lay out the smallest part of it, with-
out another's leave. Even when man says to her with
the sanction of the church and in the presence of
God, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," it
means only that she is invited to enjoy, not pos-
sess them. This estimate of her rights, her position,
and her ability, made manifest in every law-book, in
the church itself, and obvious in every social form, dis-
courages her whenever she would devote herself to any

314 THE COURT.

lucrative employment; so that it is only in desertion
and despair, for the most part, that she becomes a
laborer. She is not always conscious of thie discour-
agement. She quiets the Cerberus within l)y a three-
times-repeated *'It is not proper," without pausing to
analyze the conventional instinct. Here we find the
real significance of the proverb, "A man of straw is
worth a woman of gold;" for the "man of .straw" is,
at least, worth such money as he may hereafter earn,
which the '* woman of gold" is not.

We hear a great deal about laws for the protection
of women; but we cannot urge too often the remark
of James Davis in his Prize K.*<say of 1854, "that all
early legislation for woman was founded, not on her
own rights, but on those of her husband and children,
and the State over her.''

When one remembers that the "seat of the law is
the bo.som of God," it .strikes one strangely, that moral
consequences to character have so little to do with
what one may call "sexual legislation."

In speaking of the frequenting of di.sreputable
houses, neither Montesquieu, nor Dr. Wood in his
"History of Civil Law," finds a single word to say
as to the moral degradation of the race, of the spt*-
cial degradation of woman involved in it, but both
grow eloquent concerning the ruin of the State. H
requires a sounder mode of thinking than most men
possess to .see the relation between the ruin of the
State and their own bad habits, the loss of one man's
purity. Thus the laws concerning adultery, or divorce

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 315

for that cause, bring the heaviest penalties, social and
legal, upon the head of an offending woman. The
legal excuse for this positive injustice is the safety of
the family and the State, — ^the great crime of im-
posing upon a family false representatives of its name
and honor; but a woman's brain and conscience are
too clear to rest in this masculine decision.

If a man cannot bring a false representative into
his own family, he can carry it into his neighbor's,
when his profligate life violates the social compact;
and, as to his own family, his vices may injure it
far more than the infidelity of his wife. At the
worst, her misconduct will only bring into the shelter
of his home a child who grows up protected socially
by her fraud; but, if he choose to ** spend his sub-
stance in riotous living," his wife and children may,
while the law gives him exclusive right to their
common property, be deserted, or driven from their
homes, to make room for those who are the com-
panions of his guilt. It is quite possible, it will be
seen, therefore, to show another side to this matter,
in no better light than that of expediency. One
canton of Switzerland (the Canton Glares) possesses
laws in regard to such matters, in marked contrast
to those of the whole civilized world. The conse-
quence is that the falsehood and crime so common
elsewhere are here unknown.*

*"A KifM who is guilty of adultery ia branded by public opinion as a forger
or Ingamist ia elaewhere, and is qot eligible to public office during the whole of
hi« life; which, under such a government, is the greatest punishment that can

316 THE COURT.

''Perhaps it would be just," says Poynter on
*' Marriage and Divorce," in 1824, — '^ perhaps it
would be just, that where the husband violates the
matrimonial compact, and the property originally
belonged to the wife, he should give back the whole
of it. Courts, however, have never gone that length."

One would think, nevertheless, that husbands them-
selves might go that length, and that men who aspire
to the credit of decency would be ashamed to eat
the bread of her they have betrayed and wounded.
How is it that they have deceived themselves from
the beginning, and have fancied that God requires
of woman a fidelity and purity that was not of the
smallest consequence to themselves?

In the late debate in Parliament on the New
Divorce Bill, when a member objected to the intro-
duction of a clause equalizing the relief of divorce
to both sexes, he asked, *'If this clause were adopted,
I should like to know how many married men there
would be in this house?" He was answered by
shouts of laughter.

Would these men have laughed, think you, if they
had been asked how many pure wives could be
found in their family circles? and, if not, would it
have been because they were capable of estimating
the value of womanly virtue? No: he cannot esti-

be inflicted. A man who breaks hia promise of betrothal, or who in any way
betrays a woman to mortification and shame, is heaped with the same scorn
that women receiV'e elsewhere. The woman who is betrayed is censured; but
the man is henceforth an out^'ast." — Cottages of the Alps, p. 288.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 317

mate that who has never known the worth of manly
purity. The spectres of illegitimacy and civil ruin
are what would stare them in the face, and turn
their very lips so white.

In France, says the "Westminster Review," fidel-
ity on the part of the husband is considered a sort
of imbecility. What is thought of it in England?
Does this scene in Parliament, printed for all our
girls to read, suggest any higher view?

"The frequenting of disreputable places," says
Davis, "was once an indictable offence in a man;
but that is now obsolete." Obsolete? and why? A
lawyer once told me, that the most obscene pub-
lication he had ever read was a book upon divorce.
I can well believe it. I thought I knew how corrupt
modern society could be; but I did not know how
unsoundness had darted to its very core, till I began
to read law, and to understand the estimate which
that puts upon woman and chastity.

When I think of these things, I wonder that this
platform is not thronged with the ghosts of dead
and ruined women, crowding here to second my
appeal to beseech you to grant human justice, to
require human virtue! And all this sin is sheltered
under the plea of protection! "How many delicious
morsels I should miss if it were not for thy care,
O most excellent jackal!"

"Lawyers," says Johnson in 1777, — "lawyers
often pay women the high compliment of supposing
them proof against all temptations combined."

318 THE COURT.

Certainly, whatever thelawyers may do, the law itself
confidently expects of them a superhuman strength. It
gives them no defence but immaculateness. It offers
them no shelter but God's temple, no robe but spot-
less ermine; and then, turning the page, it says, ''A
husband is expected to be vigilant, and so prevent
his own dishonor:" as if his vigilance and quick-
wittedness could save the woman whom his love
had not blessed.

Ah! these lawyers are but blind guides, after all.
Centuries of discomfiture and defeat have not sufficed
to teach them how little security is to be found in
suspicion and scepticism. If I do not want my
groceries stolen, I must leave my storeroom open.
The very servant who would not scruple to pick
my locks will know better than to pick that of her
own heart. "A thorough-bred woman," says Mrs.
Reid, *'is good only so far as her husband suggests
and allows;" and, so long as this is the standard,
woman's duplicity may well match man's utmost
expectation, and there is not a privilege of his open
vice that she will not secure by stealth.

There was a time when all the women at the
court of France l)lushed for one of their number
who unluckily made use of a hard word in a proper
place. In like manner, the woman who reads law
blushes to find herself even tolerably sincere and
modest. It is not expected of her. Why has she
never done any of the bad things the law so con-
fidently predicts?

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. S19

All thinking people must see how easily we turn
from the consolidated law of ages, with its false views,
its untrue estimate of woman and duty, to the ques-
tion of the right of suffrage.

In 1848 and 1850, we used to hear a great deal of
three objections to conferring this right upon wo-
men:—

Ist, Its incompatibility with household care and the duties
of maternity.

2d, Its hardening effect on the character; politics not being fit
for woman.

3d, The inexpediency of increasing competition in the already
crowded fields of labor and office.

To these three points we gave short and summary
answers: —

Ist, There are a great many women who will never be mothers
and housekeepers; and, if there were not, suffrage is no more
incompatible with maternity and housekeeping than it is with
mercantile life and the club-room.

2d, If it hardens women, it will harden men; and the politics
which are not fit for her are not fit for him, nor will they become
so till her presence gives men a motive to purify them.

3d, At the worst, competition could only go so far, that a
man and a woman would earn as Uttle together as the man now
does alone. This would be better than the present condition
of things; for they would then be equal partners, and no longer
master and slave. Both would work, and neither need pine.

These answers, whether logical or not, have practi-
cally silenced the objections. We hear no more of

320 THE COURT.

this nonsense. But, on the other hand, a respectable
daily says, "As to the abstract right of a woman to
vote because she is a human being and pays taxes,
there is no such abstract right in any human being,
male or female: the extent of the elective franchise is,
and must ever be, limited by considerations of ex-
pediency."

Then a distinguished review goes on to say, "that
while the question of suffrage stands where it now
does, so unsettled that every Congress and Parliament
discuss it anew, we are glad that any thing should
prevent the discussion as to conferring on woman a
duty, the grounds of which are very vague and un-
determined so far as regards men;" and a critic of
Rosa Bonheur's magnificent pictures advises the "sad
sisterhood of women 's-rights advocates to visit the
exhibition, and sigh to think how much one silent
woman's hand outvalues for their cause the pathos
and the jeers of their unlovely platform."

Such remarks as these are easily met. To the first
objector, who declares, although the professed advo-
cate of a republican government, that there is no siich
thing as any abstract right to vote, we reply, that in
this particular discussion we don't care about abstract
rights; what we want is our oum share of the tangible
acknowledged right which human governments confer.
If in England this right depends on a property quali-
fication, then we claim that there the property qualifi-
cation shall endow woman as well as man with the
right of suffrage. If in America it depends upon an

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 321

inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, then we demand that our government rec-
ognize woman as so endowed, and receive her vote.

To the reviewer we say also, If the grounds of suf-
frage are vague and undetermined in theory, they may
remain so, so far as our interference is concerned.
What we ask to share is the steady right to vote,
which has been actually granted, and never disputed,
since our government was founded; and sufficiently
pressed, we might add, that, if there is ever any
chance of limiting the right of suffrage, we shall do
all we can to secure its dependence on a certain
amount of education, in preference to a certain amount
of wealth.

As to the art critic, we thank him for calling us the
*'8ad sisterhood." We should be sorry to be other-
wise, when pleading for women before men; sorry to
find matter for jesting in those purlieus of St. Giles
and Five Points and the Black Sea, beating up re-
morselessly against these very doors, which lie at the
very heart of our effort. As to the matter of going
to see the Horse Fair and the Highland Cattle, it will
probably be found to be a fact, that, in every city
where those great pictures have been exhibited, '' wo-
men's-rights women*^ have been their earliest visitors;
and, standing before the canvas, have thanked God,
with an earnestness the art critic never dreamt of, for
that silent woman's hand, that glorious woman's life.
It was not necessary for .him to remind us of what
Solomon had said so much better three thousand

2A

322 THE COURT.

years ago; namely, that ''speech is silvern, and silence
is golden." Nathless, silver is still current in all
markets; and, God willing, we are not ashamed to
use it.

We intend to claim, in words, the right of suffrage;
and why?

Turning from that wretched estimate of woman,
and of man's duty toward woman, which the law-
books have just offered us, we claim the right of suf-
frage, because only through its possession can women
protect themselves; only through its exercise can both
sexes have equality of right and power before the law.
Whenever this happened, character would get its le-
gitimate influence; and it is just possible that men
might become rational and virtuous in pri\ate, if
association with women compelled them to seein so in
pu])lic.

It is noticeal)le, that every man disclaims at his
own hearth, and in the presence of women, whatever
there is of disgraceful appertaining to political or
other public meetings. So7ncbody must be responsible
for these things; and yet, if we are to believe wit-
nesses, nobody ever does them. The bare fact of
association must take all the blame.

The laws already existing prove conclusively to
woman herself, that she has never had a real repre-'
sentative. What she seeks is to utter her own con-
victions, so that they shall redeem and save not
merely her own sex but the race.

That the right of suffrage would be a protection to

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 323

women, we see from this fact, that it would at once
put an end to three classes of laws: —

I. Those that protect her from violence.
II. Those made to protect her from fraud.

III. Those that protect society from the passions of
both sexes.

The moment woman began to exercise this right, I
think we should see moral significance streaming from
every statute. We should no longer hear that seduc-
tion was to be sued as 'Moss of service:" it would
become loss of honor to more than one. We should
no longer hear that consent or temptation excused it:
we should find that God demanded chastity of both
sexes, and had made man the guardian of his own
virtue. We should find, that, if its punishment ad-
mitted of degrees, it should be heaviest where a
man committed it in defiance or abuse of a positive
trust.

Let us look at a single decision in the light of these
principles. Let us take the case of Harris versus
Butler, reported in the notes to Davis's Prize Essay.

A man named Harris had apprenticed his daughter
to a milliner named Butler, paying as an entrance-fee
a sum equivalent to a hundred and fifty dollars. After
a short time, the girl was seduced by her mistress's
husband. She became seriously ill, and was returned
to her father, who lost not only his hundred and fifty
dollars, but all the benefits of her apprenticeship, and
was obliged to provide her with board, medicine, and
nursing.

324 THE COURT.

Why the father became liable for the care of his
child under such circumstances does not appear.
Common sense would suggest that the court might
have required this at the hands of the Butlers; but,
unfortunately, law has very little to do with common
sense.

The father brought an action against Butler: but
the defence urged, that he could only sue for "loss of
service;" that her ''services" were not his after she
was apprenticed to Mrs. Butler; that Mrs. Butler and
her husband were "one person in law;" and that, if
Butler chose to deprive himself of her services for his
own ends, the law had no remonstrance to make, no
redress to afford.

The prosecution urged, that the "care of morals"
was one of the duties involved in the very system of
apprenticeship; but the court denied the claim, unless
it were distinctly set forth on the articles signed.

This is but one case out of hundreds accessil)le to
you all. The moment woman becomes a law-maker,
such records will be wipt^d out of your life. They
may make a certain sort of show in your law-books;
but what have the unbending laws of God to do with
this "one person in law," this plea for "loss of ser-
vice?" At the eternal bar, no man will dare to echo
that plea, no judge rehearse that verdict. Such law
rests not in the "bosom of God;" its voice chimes
not in keeping with the harmony of his countless
spheres.

You object to seeing women in Parliament. Eng-

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 325

lish lords tell us that delicate matters have to be dis-
cussed there, with which women would hardly care to
meddle. The natural growth of society opens the
area of all proprieties. Delicate matters come to be
discussed in most households; and it is reasonable to
suppose that they would be more delicately and ra-
tionally discussed if they were sometimes puhlidy
met. It is my opinion, that no subject is fit for dis-
cussion at all that cannot be discussed between men
and women. It is separating the sexes in such cases,
that opens the way to indecency. All great themes
of human thought and human virtue, men and women
ought to be trained to consider seriously together;
and where better than in the Congress or the Parlia-
ment? Think only of the debate which I have quoted
on the New Divorce Bill! Could such a scene have
taken place in the presence of women? Recur to the
trial of Queen Caroline; or to that of the Duke of
York, when accused of conniving at the corrupt
sale of military commissions by his mistress, Mrs.
Clarke.

Under date of Feb. 16, 1809, Freemantle writes:
"The scene which is going on in the House of Com-
mons is so disgusting, and at the same time so alarm-
ing, that I hardly know how to describe it to you. Of
course, while this ferment lasts (and God knows when
it is to end), no attention will be paid to the business
of the country."

In these instances, high-bred men showed a taste for
low scandal; battening day after day on the same

326 THE COURT.

loathsome details, which the presence of a single
woman must have checked. Here was a woman,
too, this very Mrs. Clarke, somewhat debased and
hardened, who had never a seat in Parliament, who
had never dreamed of exercising the right of suffrage,
yet was quite equal, as the evidence showed, to any
political venality, striving in her way to outdo the very
jobbers of Downing Street itself! Why should elec-
tions l)e scenes of tumult, or parliaments free fields for
imbecile improprieties? Why should not a peeress
feel herself as properly placed among her peers as the
Queen seated at her Council?

We are not likely to withdraw our claim while it
is sustained by such a man as John Stuart Mill, who,
in his late essay on '* Political Representation," advises
this extension of the suffrage: "All householders, with-
out distinction of Sc^x," he says, ''might be adopted
into the constituency, on proving to the registrar's
officer that they have fifty pounds a year, and can
read, write, and calculate."

**The almost despotic power of husbands over
wives," Mr. Mill adds in his *^ Essay on Liberty,"
"needs not to be enlarged upon here, l^ecause noth-
ing more is needed for the complete removal of the
evil than that wives should have the same rights, and
should receive the protection of the law in the same
manner, as all other persons; and because, on this
subject, the defenders of established injustice do not
avail themselves of the plea of liberty, but stand forth
openly as the champions of power."

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 327

The dedication of this "Essay on Liberty" ought
to be preserved in these pages; for it is full of historic
significance: —

"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the in-
spirer, and in part the author, of all that has been best in my writ-
ings; the friend and wife, whose exalted sense of truth and light
was my strongest excitement, and whose approbation was my
chief reward, — I dedicate this volume.

"Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs as
much to her as to me; but the work, as it stands, has had, in a
very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision;
acme of the most important portions having been reserved for a
more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined
to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one-
half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in
her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it than
is ever likely to arise from any thing that I can write, unprompted
and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom."

I said that this dedication ought, for many reasons,
to be preserved in these pages. What is better fitted
than such a tribute to check the jeering scepticism of
the crowd as to the ability and purity of the sex?
What could lay a better foundation for a better esti-
mate on the part of the law? Necker, in his report
to the French Government, publicly awarded to his
wife the credit of the recent retrenchment in the ex-
penses of the Government; Bowditch dedicated his
translation of the "M^canique Celeste" to the wife
who aided him to prepare, and by her self-denial
opened a way for him to publish it: but where, in

328 THE COURT.

the records of the past, shall we find such a tribute
offered by such a man, as honorable in itself to the
first political economist of our time as it is a gracious
adornment to the name of the woman he loved?
Does it not promise in itself the dawning of a brighter
future for woman, when no "sad sisterhood" shall be
needed either to proclaim woman's rights or redress
her wrongs? *

* In reprintiiiK for his collertod works MrB. Mill's article on "The Enfran-
rhisemont of Wonu-n." Mr. Mill more lately says. "All the more recent of these
papers were the joint production of mys«'lf. and one whose loss, even in a merely
intellectual point of view, can never be rvpaire<l or alleviated. But the foUow-
inR essay is hers in a peculiar sense; my sharr in it hcinK little more than that of
e<litor or amanuensis. Its authorship having l»eon known at the time, and
publicly attribute*! to her, it is proper to state, that she never rejtardecl it as a
complete discussion of the subject which it tn'ats of. and, highly as I estimate
it, I would rather it remaine«l unacknowI«xljre<l. than that it should he reml with
the iiiea, that even the faintest ima«e can l><> found in it of a mind and heart,
which, in their union of the rarest, and what are deemeii the most conflicting
mcellences, were unparallele<l in any human Ijeing that 1 have known or rea«l of .
While she was the light, life, and grac*' of every society in which she took part,
the foundation of her character w;u* a dwp 9«"riousness, n'sulting from the com-
bination of the strongest and most seQsitive feelings with the highest principles.
All that excites a<:lmiration, when found separately, in others, seemed brought
together in her, — a conscience at once healthy and tender; a generosity bounded
only by a sense of justice, which often forgot its own claims, but never thoee of
others; a heart so large and loving, that whoever was capable of making tlio
8malU>8t return of sympathy always rectMved tenfold; and, in the intellectual
department, a vigor and truth of imagination, a delicacy of perception, an accu-
racy and nicety of obm>rvation, only etjualleti by her profundity of speculative
thought, and by a practical judgment ond discernment next to infallible. So
elevate<l was the general level of her faculties, that the highest poetry, philoso-
phy, oratory, or art, seeme<l trivial by the side of her, and equal only to express-
ing some part of her mind; and there is no one of these modes of manifestation
in which she could not easily have taken the highest rank, had not her inclina-
tion led her for the most part to content herself with being the inspirer, prompter,
and unavowed co-adjutor, of others.

"The present paper was written to promote a cause which she had deeply
at heart; and, though appealing only to the severest reason, was meant for the

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 329

About two years since (1858), the Stockholm
**Aftonblad/' a Swedish newspaper, stated that ''the
authorities of the old university-town of Upsal had
granted the right of suffrage to fifty women owning
real estate, and to thirty-one doing business on their
own account. The representative that their votes
assisted in electing was to sit in the House of Bur-
gesses."

This is the way the matter is to begin. By and by^
the interests of labor and trade will force the authori-
ties of Bristol and Manchester, Newcastle and Plym-
outh, to do the same thing; and, after women have
gone on for some twenty years electing members of
Parliament, no one .of us will be surprised to find some
women sitting in that body. "But," objects some-
body, "if that ever happens, we shall have women on

general reader. The question, in her opinion, was in a stage in which no treat-
ment but the most calmly aricumentativp could be useful; while many of the
strongest arguments were necessarily omitted, as being unsuited for popular
effect. Had she lived to write out all her thoughts on this great question, she
would have produced something as far transcending in profundity the present
evay, as. had she not placed a rigid restraint upon her feelings, she would have
excelled it in fervid eloquence.

"Yet nothing that even she could have written on any single subject would
have given an adequate idea of the depth and compass of her mind. As, during
life, she detected, before any one else had seemed to perceive them, those changes-
of time and circumstances, which, ten or twelve years later, became subjects
of general remark; so I venture to prophesy, that, if mankind continue to im-
prove, their q>iritual history for ages to come will be the progressive working,
out of her thoughts, and the realisation of her conceptions."

Such tributes, borne by noble men to noble women, are so frequently hiddea
away in the heavy volumes which lie out of ordinary reach, that I take pleasure
In bringing them to support my own plea; and I only wish I could as easily add
to that in the text the charming acknowledgments of Alexis de Tocqueville to
his wife.

330 THE COURT.

juries, women pleading at the bar, women as attor-
neys, and so on." And this is exactly what we want.
Women are very much needed on juries, and female
criminals will never be tried by their peers until they
are there. It is very seldom that a criminal case in
which women are implicated is brought forward, when
women could not be of immense service in clearing
up evidence, and showing to the male jurors on the
panel the absurdity or impossibility of some of the
statements. The recent instance of Miss Shedden,
who took up, at a moment's notice, a case which five
well-feed lawyers of distinction declared themselves
unprepared to defend, might be quoted in confirma-
tion of our view. Mr. Russell said at the Liverpool
Assizes lately, in a ca.se which involved some peculiar
evidence, **The evidence of women is, in some re-
spects, superior to that of men. Their power of
judging of minute details is better; and when there
are more than two facts, and something be wanting,
their intuitions supply the deficiency." And precisely
the qualities which fit them to give evidence, fit them
to sift and test it. Women often have occasion to
smile, sometimes sadly, sometimes mischievously, at
the verdicts passed upon their own sex. If women
were to enter into the practice of law, or become law-
makers, an immense change would take place in all
that relates to it. Absurd technicalities would be
swept off its papers. One hundred words would no
longer do duty for one. Simple, common-sense forms
of expression would take place of the obsolete Latin

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 331

and Norman-French. Daylight would be let into in-
dictments, and flaws would soon be hard to find. No
woman ever existed, whose patience would stand, in
cases where meaning and law are evident, the absurd
delays of chancery courts, or the still absurder ** filing
of objections,'^ or "defining of terms," with which law-
yers amuse a jury, and which Sir Leicester Dedlock,
we are told, considered as the bulwarks of the English
Constitution. This impatience of woman might not
be very valuable, if she were to legislate alone; but,
controlled by man's conservative caution, it will be of
the greatest service.

We are perpetually met by the opposition extended
to any thing that is new. It ought to be our object,
therefore, to show, that for woman to claim and pos-
sess the right of suffrage is by no means a new thing.
It is easy to show from the records of most nations,
that women held and exercised political power so
long as power was supposed to inhere chiefly in prop-
erty, and so long as women, either single or in asso-
ciation, possessed property not represented by men.
Thus the suppression of religious houses in England
put an end to the representation of abbesses. "Truly,
we think more of money than of love," said one of
the St. Simoniens: "we have more consideration for
bags of dollars than human dignity. We emancipate
women in proportion as they are property-holders;
but, in proportion as they are women, our laws
declare them inferior to us." Jt was only when the
republican idea had crept to a certain extent into mo-

332 THE COURT.

narchical governments themselves, that women gradu-
ally dropped a recognized public influence which had
depended on rank and wealth. What men have to
do is, not to reconcile themselves to a woman's right
to vote, — a right acknowledged hundreds of years
ago, which is still covertly acknowledged when wo-
man means property, — but to reconcile themselves
to the idea that woman is a human being, and that
humanity has a right to vote. Wherever govern-
ments decide that every individual has a right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they must ad-
mit the right of the individual woman to vote, or
deny the fact of her humanity. There is the di-
lemma. In support of this statement, I should have
shown you, that in France, as early as the reign of
Louis XIV. the political rights of property were re-
spected in the persons of women. At the present
day, the remains of the old feudal and communal
system still secure a kind of political influence to cer-
tain women in the provinces, and often confer upon
their husbands a right of franchise. In the reign of
Louis XIV, the women who hawked and vended
fish took up the business of the "insolvent fishmon-
gers," and managed so well, that they acquired
wealth, married their children into the first families,
and finally became an estate of the realm.

'*Les Dames de la Halle," or "Dames of the Mar-
ket," as they are called, have a corporate existence;
and, if corporations have no souls, they ordinarily pos-
sess franchises ! They have their queen, their laws,

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 333

and a language peculiar to themselves. They take
part in revolutions, and send deputations to the foot
of the throne. Nor am I alluding now to long-past
feudal or re-actionary crises. Louis Napoleon treats
them as civilly as he does the clergy. When he was
married, and when the young prince was born, they
went to the Tuileries in their court-dress. Their
princesses — and we are told that their blood-royal
claims the higher privilege of beauty also — their
princesses took the front rank in the procession, and
offered bouquets to their imperial majesties. In re-
sponse, Louis Napoleon gave to them what he gives
to all corporations, — a very diplomatic speech.

I have told you what was granted at Upsal in
1858. It is a curious fact, that, just at the moment
when this question of suffrage was first agitated by
the women of the United States assembled in con-
vention at Seneca Falls in 1848, Pauline Roland and
Madame Moniot publicly claimed their civil rights in
Paris. Pauline went herself to the ballot, and, when
her vote was refused, published a protest after the
fashion of our tax-payers. Very absurd English so-
ciety found woman's first demand for the suffrage;
yet what Englishmen refuse contemptuously to give
to woman, certain men of the mean sort, yet calling
themselves respectable, have not been ashamed in
that very country to borrow of her. Even ** Black-
wood" helps out our argument, when it says, in
November, 1854, "I believe, Eusebius, I speak of a
notorious fact, when I say, that it is less than a cen-

334 THE COURT.

tury since, for election purposes, parties were un-
blushingly married in cases where ivomen conveyed a
right of freedom, a political franchise to their hus-
bands, and parted, after the election, by shaking hands
over a tombstone, as an act of dissolution of the con-
tract, under cover of the words, 'Until death do us
part.' " * The men who looked calmlj^ on this pro-
fane and absurd fraud may well dread the moral in-
fluence of woman on elections. As to the historical
argument for England, ladies of birth and quality,
we are told, sat in council with the Saxon Witas.
The Abbess Hilda presided in an ecclesiastical coun-
cil. "In Wiglitfrcd's great council at Benconceld in
694," says (Uirdon in his "Antiquities of Parliament,"
"the abbesses sat and deliberated; and five of them
signed decrees of that council, with the king and
l)ish()ps:" and that illuminated prebendary of Sarum,
old Thomas Fuller, thus further chronicles the same
event : —

"A great council (for so it is titled) was held at Becanceld
(supiK)tsod to be Heckingham in Kent) by Withred, King of Kent,
and Hcrtuald, Archbishop of Britain, so called therein (under-
stand, him of Canterbury), wherein many things were concluded
in favor of the church. Five Kentish abbesses — namelv, Mil-

* In an article in the "Edinburgh Weekly Journal" for Jan. 10, 1827. written
by Sir Walter Scott, the following allusion is made to abuses which had crept
into the army in the middle of the eighteenth century: —

"To sum up this catalogue of abuses, commissiofit were in some instances
bestowed upon young ladies, when pensions could not be had. We know our-
selves one fair dame who drew the pay of a captain in the dragoons, and

was probably not much loss fit for the servii-t' than some who at that period
actually did duty."

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 335

dred, Ethelred, iEte, Wilnolde, Heresinde — were not only present,
but subscribed their names and crosses to the constitutions con-
cluded therein : and we may observe, that their subscriptions are
not only placed before and above all presbyters, but also above
that of Botred, a bishop present in this great council. It seems it
was the courtesy of England to allow the upper hand to the weaker
sex, as in their sitting, so in their subscription."

King Edgar's charter to the Abbey of Crowland, in
961, was with consent of the nobles and abbesses who
signed that charter. In Henry the Third's and King
Edward the First's time, four abbesses were sum-
moned to Parliament; namely, of Shaftesbury, of
Winchester, of Berking, and of Wilton. In the
thirty-fifth year of Edward the Third, were sum-
moned— by writ of Parliament, to sit in person or
by their proxies — Mary, Countess of Norfolk; Alie-
nor, Countess of Ormond; Anna Despenser; Philippa,
Countess of March; Johanna Fitzwater; Agneta,
Countess of Pembroke; Mary de St. Paul; Mary de
Roos; Matilda, Countess of Oxford; Catharine,
Countess of At hoi.

As to the offices which women can hold in Great
Britain, we have already quoted something from Mr.
Higginson, in speaking of the prohibitions of the law.
Lady Packington's estate has probably, by this time,
passed into male hands: so she elects no more mem-
bers of Parliament. Those who have read the plea
of Lady Alice Lille, when she was forbidden to speak
by attorney, will find no great difficulty in imagining
that a woman could manage a government debate.

336 THE COURT.

Such women as have purchased or inherited East-
India stock have always had the privilege of voting
at the meetings of the companj', and so have assisted
to govern that unhappy country. In the provincial
English towns, if I may judge from the indirect testi-
mony of novels and newspa]x»rs, women appear to
attend all stockholders' meetings; certainly those held
by the banks. In the United States, they are notified,
but not expected to attend; a cool kind of insult, which
I wish some women might astonish them by retaliat-
ing. If any bank were established by, or had a ma-
jority of, female stockholders, it would lx» quite easy
to notify men, without exj^ecting thetn to attend; and
the alternative of trusting their own property to the
judgment of women might possibly open the eyes of
men to the absurdity of the present custom.

As we withdraw our eyes from the past, it is nat-
ural to inquire, What late changes have taken place
in Great Britain? and what is the strength of the
reform tendency? I have often said, yet I must re-
peat it here, that nothing has ever promised such no-
ble usefulness for woman, nothing has ever occurred
to change the popular estimate of her character, in
the same degree as the formation of that out-of-door
Parliament, — the Association for the Advancement
of Social Science. It offers a position of entire
equality to woman. It encourages her to express her-
self in the presence and with the sympathy of the
wisest men, and gives her an opportunity to speak to
the actual Parliament through her own influence ex-

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 337

erted on its best members. It has been well said (I
think, by Mrs. Mill), that the very best opportunities
of education will be opened to woman in vain, until
she is practically invited to turn them to account.
Here, in this association, is her first practical invita-
tion in Great Britain. God grant that she may un-
derstand the responsibility it involves, and bear it
well! But the formation of this association in 1857
was preceded by other steps. It was on the 13th of
February, 1851, that a petition of women, agreed to
by a public meeting at Sheffield, and claiming the
elective franchise, was laid before the House of Lords
by the Earl of Carlisle; and, in July of the same year,
Mrs. Mill's admirable article on the " Enfranchisement
of Women," now become commonplace on account of
the extensive and thorough use that has been made
of it, appeared in the "Westminster."

The examination of Florence Nightingale before a
commission of inquiry bore witness no less to the
surpassing ability of the woman than to the increas-
ing value of such ability to all governments. In con-
nection with it, one could not but smile at the distress
felt by certain journals over a single mistake on the
part of the lady as to the proper title of a subordi-
nate officer.

In the month of March, 1856, the "London Times"
published a petition to both Houses of Parliament in
behalf of an amendment of the English property-laws.
This petition was signed by many women whose
names are well known and dear to us, — by the late

20

338 THE COURT.

Anna Jameson, so well known to the world as an
accomplished critic in literature and art; by the wife
and sister of the poet Browning, — Elizabeth Brown-
ing, herself the first poet among women, so far; by
Bessie Raynor Parkes and Matilda Hayes, the editors
of the "Englishwoman's Journal," the establishment
of which of itself constitutes an era in the progress of
human thought; by Barbara Bodichon, the well-
known artist; by Harriet Martineau, distinguished in
political economy; by Mary Howitt, the womanly
story-teller and ballad-maker; and Mrs. Ga.skell, the
author of "Mary Barton." The petition was sup-
ported in the House of Lords by Lord Brougham,
and in the House of Commons by Sir Erskine Perry.
After the close of the session in April, 18o7, a
dinner was offered to Lord Brougham in acknowl-
edgment of the distinguished ardor with which he
had pressed this bill, — the ^Lirried Woman's Prop-
erty Act of 1857. This bill did not aj)ply to Ireland
or Scotland, nor to pre-e-xisting contracts; that is, to
marriages solemnized before the first day of January,
1858. It was not passed; but a clause for the pro-
tection of the earnings and savings of married women
was introduced into the New Divorce Bill, and has
already proved a blessing to hundreds. This clause,
however, operates only in cases of desertion, — a
charge easily evaded.*

♦*'In the little brown duodecimo which contains the jottipgs of 'that famous
lawyer, William Tothill, Esquire,' there is the following entr>', of the date of
James I.: —

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 339

The New Divorce Bill passed in 1858: the Divorce
and Matrimonial Causes Act Amendment Bill passed
in July, 1858; and since then, the Divorce Court Bill
in August, 1859; both of these last having been
made necessary by the first change in the law. It
was in April, 1858, that Mr. Buckle delivered his
lecture on "Civilization;" an important contribution
to that estimate of woman, which is beginning to act
powerfully on all legislation. The Law-Amendment
Society also publishe<l a report, urging a thorough
reform of the law.

In connection \vith the reforms effected in the
mother-country, it may be well to state, that similar
reforms are being effected in Canada. Legislators
there turn for their precedents to England ; but there
can be no doubt that the agitation in the United
States largely contributes towards these changes.

A Married Woman's Property Act passed the
Council in May, 1858; but as these changes are
still in progress, and a progress much interrupted by
political fluctuations, it seems hardly worth while to
enter into their details.

In one respect, the statutes of Canada are marked
by a singular inconsistency. They record the only
instance, within my knowledge, in which a govern-
ment distinctly forbids women to vote; and almost

'Fleahward contra Jackson. Money given to a feme covert for her main-
because her hiisband ia an unthrift. The husband pretends that the
should be his; but the court ordered the money to be at her own dispo-
aaL'"— London Quarterly, July, 18«1. A very ancient germ of a "Married
Woman's Property Law."

340 THE COURT.

the only instance of a government conferring that
right, even to a limited extent. In the twelfth year
of Victoria, the Canadian Government passed a stat-
ute in these words: "No woman is or shall he en-
titled to vpte at any election for any electoral division
whatever." What spasm of autocratic terror, what
momentary rebellion against their liege lady, inspired
this act, we are left uninformed. For the most part,
in all countries, women wait to be told that they may
vote; and their ineligibility is decided by the intro-
duction of the word "male," or the popular construc-
tion of the word "citizen," which, it is quite evident,
does not mean a woman. But it was in Canada also
that a distinct electoral privilege was conferred by
intention in 1850; an intention, however, which indi-
cated no enlargement of views, nor desire of reform,
nor recognition of woman at her human value: it
was simply an intention on the part of the Protestants
to secure a little more pohtical power. Not humane,
then, but interested motives dictated the omission of
the word "male" in that section of the statues which
provides for the election of school trustees. It was
desired thus to bring the influence of female property-
holders and Protestants to check the Roman-Catholic
demand for separate schools. Three things made it
easy for Canadian women to vote under this pro-
vision:—

1st, The great degree of individual independence
seen everywhere in Enghsh-born women, as com-
pared with American.

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW. 341

2d, The respect felt, in all countries where distinc-
tions of rank exist, for the mere property-holder.

3d, The political excitement of the local Protestant
Church, which sustained them to the uttermost.

They have voted for ten years; and a four-years*
residence among them was sufficient to convince me,
that no greater derangement to society would occur
if the full right were conferred. In connection with
English government and English colonies, I ought to
speak of the government of Pitcairn's Island. It was
the mutinous crew of his majesty's ship " Bounty'*
that settled Pitcairn's Island. Adams, the boatswain,
was the father of the little community, and drew up
the simple code of laws by which the islanders are
still governed. On Christmas Day, a magistrate and
councillor are elected for the ensuing year; men
and women over sixteen being allowed to vote. The
women assist in the cultivation of the ground, and
take no inconsiderable share in the municipal debates.
The fate of this experiment is not yet decided; sol
have thought it worth while to preserve the statement.
You will have already seen, that in England, as else-
where, so long as the right of suffrage depended upon
possession of property, upon hard pieces of eight, or
broad acres of land, there was no dispute of woman's
privilege. It is no new thing for woman to vote in
England: it is a very old thing. It is only a ques-
tion whether she shall vote upon the ground of her
humanity.

342 THE COURT.

III.

THE UNITED-STATES LAW, AND SOME THOUGHTS ON
Hl'MAN RIGHTS.

"Men often think to bring about great results by violent and
unprepared effort ; but it is only in fair and forectist order, 'a«
the earth bringeth forth her bud,' that right I'ousness and praise
may spring forth before the nations." — John Ruskin.

IN passing last to the United States of America,
one is tempted to ask, \\ith Anna Brewster when
rehearsing the hardships of Helvetian women, "Can
it })e true, as the advocates of despotic government
often say, that under no government are women so
harshly treated, so stripped of all independent rights,
as under a republic? In republican Helvetia, the
\'audois peasant woman leaves all household care, to
stand, spring, summer, and autumn, in her vineyard;
but not a bunch of grapes can she gather for the
market, without her hus})and's leave. He may have
loitered and smoked through every sunny day, while
she has dug and dressed and watered; but she may
not sell one grape to buy bread for her children."

And this is a picturesque statement of the English
common law, on which the common law of the
United States still rests in the main, and on which it
has rested entirely until within the last ten years.

A few passages from Chancellor Kent will indi-
cate,—

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 343

I. The estimate of woman formed by this law, and
the property-laws built upon this estimate.

II. The laws which regulate divorce. We shall
have to consider, —

III. Woman's general civil position; and, —

IV. The right of suffrage.

Fortunately for us, Chancellor Kent talks plain
English. He tells us exactly what the law means,
and sets it forth as if it were written to be under-
stood; which is not exactly the case with all his
predecessors.

As to the estimate of woman on which the laws
are based, we have, in connection with what we have
already quoted from Enghsh law-books, the following
statement: —

"But as the husband is the guardian of the wife, and bound
to protect and maintain her, the law has given him a reasonable
superiority and control over her person; and he may even put
gentle restraints upon her liberty, if her conduct be such as to
require it. The husband is the best judge of the wants of the
family, and the means of supplying them; and, if he shifts his
domicile, the wife is bound to follow him." — KenCa Commen-
taries, vol. ii. p. 180.

The best comment on this is found, I think, in a
story told by Mrs. Stowe, who says that she once saw
a little hut perched on a barren ledge of the Alps, out
of reach of human help, and without pasture; but a
little below it were stretches of sweet Alpine grass,
inviting to eye and foot, and capable of affording sus-
tenance to goats and sheep. "How long have you

344 THE COURT.

lived here?" asked Mrs. Stowe of the old woman.
"Above forty years." — ''And what made you come
so far up? Don't you like the meadow?" — "I don't
know," was the reply: "it was the rnan's notion.^'

It is somewhat questionable, whether this man
would be the best judge of the wants of his family,
Chancellor Kent to the contrar>^ notwithstanding; as
also what might be his idea of "gentle restraint," in
case the wife had refused "to shift her domicile." As
to property, Kent proceeds: —

The general rule is, that the husband becomes enti-
tled, on the marriage, to all the goods and chattels of
the wife, and to the rents and profits of her lands;
and he becomes liable to pay her debts and perform
her contracts.

1. If the wife have an inheritance in land, he takes
the rents and profits during their joint lives. He
may sue in his own name for an injury to the profits
of the land; but, if the husband himself chooses to
commit waste, the wife has no redress at common
law.

2. If the wife, at the time of her marriage, hath an
estate for her life, the husband becomes seized of
such an estate, and is entitled to the profits during
marriage.

3. The husband also becomes possessed of the
chattels real of the wife; and the law gives him
power, without her consent, to sell, assign, mortgage,
or otherwise dispose of, the same as he pleases.
Such chattels real are liable to be sold on execution

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 345

for his debts (vol. ii. p. 133). If he survive his wife,
the law gives him her chattels real by survivorship.

4. If debts are due to the wife before marriage,
and are recovered by the husband afterward, the
money becomes, in most cases, absolutely his own.

On the other hand, the husband is, —

^Ist, Obliged to provide for his wife out of his* for-
tune, or her own that he has taken into his custody,
of what the court calls "necessaries," — these again,
of course, to be dependent on the ^^mari's notion^* \
and, —

2d, Becomes liable for her frauds and torts during
coverture, — the law understanding, as well as a mer-
chant, that it is useless to "sue a broken bench. '*

The indulgence of the law toward the wife, we are
then told, is founded on the idea of force exercised
by the husband; a presumption only, which may be
repelled. What this indulgence is, we may well be
puzzled to guess, unless the phi'ase indicate that she
is not to be prosecuted for theft, where both are guilty;
and yet, if the presumption that he compelled her to
steal be repelled^ she may be prosecuted, and found
guilty.

A wife cannot devise her lands by will ; nor can she
make a testament of chattels, except it be of those
which she holds en autre droit, without the license of
her husband. It is not strictly a will, then, only an
appointment, which the husband is bound to allow
(vol. ii. p. 170).

The laws are essentially the same in Pennsylvania,

346 THE COURT.

Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky,
and New York; in the latter State, of course, only
as applicable to marriages contracted before the pas-
sage of the new bill. It is the same in all the States,
with one or two Western exceptions;- because the
passage of a new law never annuls pre-existing con-
tracts. In consequence, practice l)ecomes contra-
dictory and intricate; and most lawj'ers not only feel,
but show, a great dislike to new laws on that ac-
count.

In regard to marriage and divorce, Kent says that
the English practice was, not to grant divorce for
unfaithfulness on the part of the husband, and the
early settlers of Massachusetts made the same dis-
tinction, creating a difference at the very outset in the
moral responsibility of the two, fatal alike to happi-
ness and civilization.

In 1840, the policy of South Carolina continued so
strict, that there had been no instance, since the Revo-
lution, of a divorce pronounced by a court of justice,
or an act of the legislature.

In Massachusetts, the law was, that divorce could
only he had for criminality. In Vermont, New Jersey,
Kentucky, Mississippi, and Michigan, divorce from
"bed and board" may be had for extreme cruelty;
and, in Michigan, for wilful desertion for three
years.

In Indiana, it is rendered for any cause, at the judg-
ment of the court.

In Illinois, divorce may be had for the usual causes,

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 347

and for drunkenness or cruelty, or such other cause as
the court shall think right; and, in such cases, the
wife does not lose her dower. These differences in
statute law indicate, one would think, a variety suffi-
cient to test in time all the theories of reformers and
experimentalists.

As to the consistency of the law, Poynter says, — "

** It 18 singular to see a marriage annulled on account of the mis-
spelling or suppressing of a name, which would be held valid
against the lasting misery of the parties."

By cruelty is meant " reasonable apprehension of
bodily hurt." Mere austerity of temper, petulance
of manners, rudeness of language, a want of civil
attention, even occasional sallies of passion, do not
amount to that cruelty which the law can relieve.
The wife must disarm her husband by the weapons of
kindness!

I have shown you upon what estimate the general
common law of the United States is based, as regards
both property and divorce. It is needless to say that
this estimate is very little to be preferred to that of
older countries; but, when the reformers of our cause
are tauntingly asked what good they have done, they
may reply proudly, though they should point to the
changes of legislation during the last ten years alone.
Since 1850, the laws have been changed in at least
nineteen States. The credit of this change should
certainly rest with the men and women of this reform ;
for, in every State, its sympathizing friends helped to
frame the new laws.

348 THE COURT.

Whether justly or not, Rhode Island claims the
honor of leading the way in such changes. In 1844,
the Hon. Wilkins Updike introduced a bill into her
legislature, securing to married women their property
under certain regulations. The step was in the right
direction. In 1847, Vermont passed similar enact-
ments. In 1848-9, Connecticut, New York, and
Texas followed; in 1850, Alabama; in 1853, New
Hampshire. In 1855, Massachusetts passed an act
of a still more comprehensive kind. It was essentially
the same as that introduced into her Senate, in 1852,
by the Hon. S. E. Sewall. It was not wholly satis-
factory to those who prepared it, but was the best it
was thought possiV)le to pass.* In 1856 and 1857,

* A law. apparently favorable to all widows, passed the Massachusetts
Legislature at the last session. It seems to me, however, to bear the marks
of a law passed for a special case. I have made several applications in the
proper quarters for information concerning it, but have received nothing in
return.
Chap. 1G4. — An Act concerning the Provisions for Widows in certain

Cases.
Be it eiuidetl, itr., as foUowsl —

Sect. 1. — When a man dies, having lawfully disposed of his estate by will
and leaving a widow, she may, at any time within six months aft^r the probate
of the will, file in the probate-office, in writing, her waiver of the provisions
made for her in the will, and shall, in such rase, be entitled to such portion of
his real and personal estate as she would have been entitled to if her husband
had died intestate: provided, hoiceier, that, if the share of the personal estate to
which she would thus become entitled shall exceed the sum of ten thousand
dollars, she shall, in such case, be entitled to receive in her own right the said
amount of ten thousand dollars, and to receive the income only of the excess
of said share above said sum of ten thousand dollars during her natural life.
If she makes no such waiver, she shall not be endowed of his lands, unless it
plainly appears by the will to have been the intention of the testator that she
should have such provisions in addition to her dower.

Sect. 2.— Upon application, matie by the widow or any one interested in the
estate, the judge of probate may appoint one or more tnistees. to receive, hold,
and manage, during the lifetime of the widow, the portion of the personal estate

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 349

the Legislatures of Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana,
Ohio, Rhode Island, and Maine, altered their property-
laws, — Rhode Island advancing somewhat on her
first step.* Wisconsin and Iowa have followed; and
it is not likely that any new States, unless they should
be slave States, will repeat the old barbarisms.

I have given Rhode Island the precedence she
claims; but there are certain statutes of the State
of Illinois, as early in date as January, 1829, which

of her deoeaaed husband, ezoeediiig ten thousand dollars, of which she is entitled
to receive under this act.

Sect. 3. — ^The twenty- fouth section of the ninety-second chapter of the General
Statutes is hereby repealed.

Approved April 0, 1861.

In a case on trial in the Superior Court to-day (Oct. 3. 1861) , Chief-Justice
Allen ruled, that the law of 1855, allowing married women to do business on
their own account, separate and apart from their husbands, did not exclude
from entering into business-partnerships with men other than their hus-

* On the 7th of April. 1861. the Ohio L^;ialature passed a bill concerning
the Rights and Liabilities of Married Women.

SaCT. 1 coareya the impression, that all married women may control their
rants and iaues of real estate belonging to them at marriage, or separately
received after.

Bmar. 5, however, says "that this law shall not affect any rights which may
have become vested in any person at the time of its taking effect;" which, of
course, cuts off from its bene&cial results all persons previously married.

It seems a perfectly simple matter to a woman to obviate the difficulties and
disappointments which arise in this way.

Ij6t parties married under the old law, but desiring to benefit by the new,
go before a magistrate, and state their wish; and then let the decision in their
favor be published in the regular way.

Such a method would not benefit parties at variance; but it would benefit a
large class of women engaged, or desiring to engage, in independent business.

The Ohio law repeals a former law of 1857. which secured to all married
women the control of the sale or the disposal of personal property exempt from
execution: so its benefits are of a nature by no means unmixed.

350 THE COURT.

deserve to be alluded to, on account of their un-
usual liberality.

If married, and over the age of eighteen years, a
woman in Illinois may, in spite of her husband, de-
vise her real estate, and })equeath her personal estate,
to any one for ever.

The wife may administer on her deceased husband's
estate, in preference to all others, if she apply within
sixty days. On her husband's death, she inherits one-
half of his real estate in fee-simple, absolute; and the
whole of his personal estate, with her rights of dower
in addition.

The wife has not legally the first title to the guar-
dianship of her child on the demise of her husband;
l)ut she has it by a kind of comity, the consent of pul)-
lic opinion and the courts.

In reference to the wife's inheriting from the hus-
band, my correspondent, the Hon. William H. Hern-
don, says, —

"You will porreivo a difTorence in the two sections relating
to the wife and husband as inheriting from one another, favorable
to the wife apparently. In the twenty-second section you will
find, that, in case of the wife's death without children, the hus-
band inherits one-half of her real estate in fee^imple, absolute;
but nothing is said about her jx^rsonal. This is because the com-
mon law has already given him her personal estate on her mar-
riage."

So we see that the State of Illinois did not quite
divest itself of the barbarisms of the common law.
In a later letter, Mr. Herndon continues: —

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 351

"Our Illinois Legislature has this winter (1860-61) enacted a
law, allowing women (married women) all their property, — real,
personal, mixed, — free from all debt, contract, obligation, and
control of their husbands. This law puts man and woman in
the same position, as far as property-rights and their remedies-
are concerned. This is right, — just as it should be. For my
life, I cannot see why there should be any distinction between
men and women, when we speak of rights under Rovemment.
A woman's rights are identical with a man's. Where he is limited^
she should be; where she is Umited, he should be."

In Rhode Island, the civil existence of the husband
and wife is but one; and, though the letter of the
law considers her property acquired by trade or in-
heritance as technically her own, still it is no longer
under her single control. If, as a wife, she sells mer-
chandise, the buyer becomes a debtor to her husband
and herself. If she makes a purchase, her note is good
for nothing, unless her husband's signature is affixed
to it. He can dispose of the whole of her personal
estate, unless the buyer has been previously notified
by her, in writing, that the property is exclusively her
own. Her real estate the husband cannot sell: but
even of this she cannot dispose by will; so, perhaps,
it might as well be sold. The absurdity becomes
ludicrous, when we remember that the law makes her
competent to devise any number of millions, so long
as it is invested in bank-stock or merchandise.

In the State of Vermont, there are three peculiar
provisions: —

First, If the husband abscond without making suf-

352 THE COURT.

ficient provision for his wife, she is permitted (!) to use
her own property and earnings, or the earnings of
her minor children, to secure a support. This permis-
sion indicates the tender mercies of the common law,
and reminds us of the Helvetian peasant-woman.

Second, She is exempted from personal restraint
during the pendency of a divorce suit.

Third, A mother and her illegitimate child may
inherit from each other.

A married woman may devise her real estate, and
it is exempt from attachment for the sole de])ts of her
husband. She may have her husband's life insured,
the insurance to be made payable to her or her chil-
dren. If he should be put into the penitentiary, she
may transact ])usiness as if she were Afeme sole.

The laws of inheritance are liberal; and the com-
mon law prevails by statute, when not repugnant to
any recorded statute.

In Connecticut, in 1855, all the real estate owned
at the time of marriage, or subsequently inherited by
the wife, rests absolutely in her. All her personal
estate passes to her husband; but all that she may
afterward receive remains in her rig:lit, her husband
being only her legal trustee. Her earnings are sub-
ject to his trusteeship, and nothing more. She is the
guardian of her own children; and the court always
confirms this right, unless she is incapacitated. In
case of divorce, the father is entitled to the children,
unless objection is made. On the decease of the hus-
band childless, one-half of his personal estate goes to

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 353

the wife, and a life-interest in one-third of the real;
or the whole, if it be needed for her support.

In New Hampshire, the common law prevails for
the most part. What express enactments she passed
in 1853 seem to refer rather to making the position of
a deserted wife equivalent to that of a feme sole than
any thing else.

As regards Massachusetts, it is common to say that
the legislation of 1855 leaves very little to be desired,
beside the right of suffrage; but a keen eye still de-
tects more than one shortcoming. The custody of the
wife's person still vests in the husband.

With reference to the guardianship of children, the
cuBtom is in fidvance of the law; while her power to
make a will is so carefully guarded, that it might as
well be surrendered.

A married woman in Massachusetts can make no
contract to bind her, except one strictly relating to her
trade, business, or property. She cannot, for instance,
indorse a note, or be a surety for another person in
any way.

In Maine, since 1857, a wife may hold the wages
of her own labor.

In Ohio, at the same date, the law gave this right
only under conditions. Long before any such changes
took place, however, the current of public opinion
often forced courts to decide against the common law,
and in accordance with equity, — equity not techni-
cally, but divinely, considered.

Judge Graham, of the Court of Common Pleas in

27

354 THE COURT.

Perry County, Penn., made such a decision in a suit
where a wife claimed return of earnings loaned by her
to her husband, and accumulated after marriage.
The legal question brought liefore Judge Graham
was, *X'an a wife maintain a suit against her hus-
band?" He decided that she could legally hold him
to a contract of the kind under consideration; and a
verdict was rendered for the woman, in the sum of
$2,508.

In August, 1859, Mrs. Dorr put in a claim for
S40,000 on her husband's estate, in the Court of
Insolvency in Worcester County. The court objected
to entertaining the claim until after the choice of an
assignee. The hearing was never completed; some
private adjustment taking its place. The claim was
said to be the first of the kind in the Commonwealth.

We come now to the consideration of the Property
Bill, passed in the spring of 1860 by the State of
New York. Not only as the latest act of specific
legislation, but as the most complete provision ever
made by any government to outwit the common law,
it demands our attention, After it was passed, a de-
ficiency relating to the rights of guardianship was
discovered, and a supplement was added. 'Qy these
two acts, the ''New York Tribune" tells us that
at least five thousand women in that State are
redeemed from pauperism, and established in peaceful
homes.

But the supplement bears on one important point,
which should be alluded to. According to the com-

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 355

mon law, as I showed in referring to England, a
daughter owes service only to her father. The moth-
er, who bore and nursed her; who has trained her up,
it may be by painful sacrifices, to habits of propriety
and thrift, — has no claim upoA her service, even in
her minority. By conferring on the mother, in case
of the father's decease, all the rights, remedies, privi-
leges, and. responsibilities in law appertaining to the
father, the new act meets the difficulty.

Before quitting the subject, we cannot refrain from
alluding to the fact, that, as early as 1849, the State
of New York had passed a qualified measure in re-
gard to property; and directing your attention to the
manifest truth, that every imperfect act of legislation
constitutes a new set of exceptions to general rules,
and very undesirably complicates legal practice.

If reforms are not to be unpopular, they should be
simple and complete.*

In commenting on the psissage of these bills, advo-
cated by Mrs. Stanton before the committees of the
Assembly and the Senate, the "New York Tribune"
says, —

"Mrs. Stanton talked forcibly. It is needless for me to say
that she talked earnestly of woman's sufferings, sweetly of her
endurance, eloquently of her rights. When she talked of her
right to be protected in the enjoyment of her property, of her
right to be released from the bondage of an ill-assorted marriage,
she was listened to with marked favor. She pleaded these de-
mands with the feeling of a true woman; and she carried the con-

.* See note, pa«e 349.

356 THE COURT.

viction, that she was not asking more than policy, as well as
justice, demanded should be conceded. When she claimed that
her voice should be heard on the hustings, and her vote be re-
ceived at the ballot-box, she was earnest and eloquent and plan-
aible; but she must have felt that she was not convincing her
audience, and she did not."

Here the single word plaiisible vitiates, as cunning
reporters well know how to do, the whole effect of the
sentence. Far more reasonal)ly, the " Tribune " might
have said she was earnest, eloquent, and sensible ; and
so have spurred its readers to thought instead of ridi-
cule. His criticism, however, launches fairiy our last
subject of discussion. It is needless to say, that no-
where in the I'nited States has woman the full power
of suffrage.

In New Jersey, women formerly possessed, and often
exercised, this right. By the Constitution, adopted
July 2, 1776, the privilege of voting was accorded to
all inhabitants, of full age and clear estate, who had
resided for a certain time in the country, and who
had fifty dollars in proclamation-money.

In 1790, a Quaker member of the Assembly had
the act so drawn as to read ''he or she." Until 1807,
women often voted, especially in times of great politi-
cal excitement; at such times, for the most part,
"under influence," we may presume. Many voted in
the presidential contest of 1800; and a newspaper of
that period thanks them for unanimously supporting
John Adams in opposition to Jeffer.<^on. So thej-
were supposed, at times, to act independently. At

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 357

an election in Hunterdon County in 1802, the ballots
of some colored women elected a member of the legis-
lature. Probably this fact, by stimulating the local
prejudice against color, and the fading-out of all aris-
tocratic distinctions, which left no property qualifica-
tions on the statute-book, led to a change; for, in
1807, an act was passed, Hmiting the right of suffrage
to "free white male citizens of twenty-one years."*

In later times, committees of intelligent men, in
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, have reported in faA
vor of granting to women the right of suffrage; but
the question was lost in the ballot which followed.

If the constitution prepared for Kansas should be
accepted by the people, single women will be empow-
ered to vote there. In Nebraska, the lower house
passed a vote, conferring the privilege; but it was too
late in the session for the question to come before the
upper branch.

In 1858, a proposition to amend the Constitution
of the State of Connecticut, so as to extend the
franchise to women, received eighty-two votes in the
House of Representatives. It was defeated by a ma-
jority of forty- five. In 18^2, the Kentucky Legisla-
ture, in providing for the election of school-trustees,
enacted that "any widow, having a child between
six and eighteen years, may vote in person or by
proxy."

A provision thus limited by public opinion and
prejudice would probably have very little force. I

♦See Appendix.

358 THE COURT.

have understood that such a provision has taken
effect in some parts of Michigan, and it has also been
recommended to the State of Massachusetts. Very
early in the history of our government, its inconsist^
encies became a matter of comment among women
themselves. How could it be otherwise? How can
she be said to have a right to life, who has never con-
sented to the laws which may deprive her of it, who
is steadily refused a trial by her peers, who has no
voice in the election of her judges? How can she be
said to have a right to liberty, whose person, if not
yet in custody, almost inevitably becomes so on her
maturity, who does not own her earnings, who can
make no vahd contract, and is taxed without repre-
sentation? How can that woman be said to possess
either the right or the reality of happiness, who is
deprived of the custody of her own person, of the
guardianship of her children, of the right to devise or
share her property?

The government is tyrannical which leaves a single
citizen in this predicament. What is to be said of a
government which enforces it upon half its subjects?

It is not strange then, that, half in jest, half in
earnest, the wife of John Adams wrote to him in
1776 to ask if it "were generous in American men to
claim absolute power over wives at a moment when
they were emancipating the whole earth." Nor was
it strange, that, in a more serious mood, Hannah
Cprbin of Virginia should write to her brother, Rich-
ard Henry Lee, on the same subject.

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 359

The American Colonies were struggling against
the mother-country, on the ground that taxation and
representation should be inseparable.

The "National Intelligencer" has to confess, when
it tells the story, that it was not strange if ** strong-
minded" women of that era, finding themselves taxed,
should wonder why they could not vote.

Mr. Lee wrote from Chantilly in reply, March 17,
1778:—

"I do not see," he says, "that any thing prevents widows, hav-
ing large property, from voting, notwithstanding it has never
been the case either here or in England. Perhaps it was thought
unbecoming for women to press into tumultuous assembhes.
Perhaps it was thought, that, as all those who vote
for taxes must bear the tax, none would be imposed, except for
the public good.

"For both the widow and the single woman," he continues,
"I have the highest respect; and would, at any time, give my
consent to secure to them the franchise, though I do not think
it would increase their security.

"The Ck)mmittee of Taxation," he adds, "are regularly chosen
by the freeholders and housekeepers; and, in the choice of them,
you have as legal a right to vote as any person."

Mr. Lee thinks, that, in a few minutes' conversation,
he could ** content" his sister upon the subject; but
eighty years have passed away, and the question is
still unsettled.

What he calls a "woman's security" is proved to
be no security, even in the small matter of money,
for men are constantly imposing taxes, the burden of

360 THE COURT.

which they are never to l)ear. As I have shown, in
treating of labor, what position women hold toward
the State in the matter of employment, I will not
repeat the statement here. Let these pages bear no
other burden than that of woman's civil rights, —
"woman's rights," — a phrase which we all hate;
which soils the lips that use it; which women speak
with such unction as a slave might clank his chains!

Soil the lips? Not because it is a phrase which
stirs the ridicule and the contempt of the weak-
minded; not because you consider it only the second
term of the Bloomer equation: but because the ne-
cessity to u.se it shows how little has \et been done;
shows that m(^n still dwell on distinctions of sex, in
preference to identities of duty; that women are play-
things still in the popular estimate, — creatures of the
nursery and the drawing-room, but not angels of CJod,
joint-heirs of immortality.

We have not laid a secure foundation for any state-
ment of this subject, unless we have made it clear
that '* woman's rights" are identical with "human
rights;" that what men do for women, they do in far
u'?V/er measure for themselves; that no father, brother,
or husband can have all the privileges ordained for
him of God, till mother and sister and wife are set
free to secure them according to instinctive individual
bias.

The subject would have no interest for me, if it
were but a selfish clamor of one class for advantages
over another; but it does interest me, — interest be-

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 361

yond all earthly debate, — because, in its evolution,
there unfolds also the highest interest of our common
humanity.

That public opinion has been somewhat conquered,
the reception given to women in the lyceum is alone
sufficient to show. When a woman of good social
standing struggles with convention on the one hand,
and womanly affection on the other, she still stands
on the platform somewhat as she did at the stake;
but, on the other hand, the awakening public interest
has nurtured a class of women who owe all that they
have and are to the platform itself.

With no oppressive restrictions in their circum-
stances,— endowed with strong good sense and a
vigorous talent, — they have won their way to the
public esteem; and are stronger and healthier than
most women, only because they have had an object
for life and thought to grasp.

What will most help women in the matter of labor,
and, through labor, to their "civil rights," is a new
conception of the dignity of labor on the part of the
educated classes, men as well as women.

Harriet Hosmer comes back from Rome to queen
it over our men; Rosa Bonheur drives a tandem of
Flemish horses through a square of canvas, and over
the very necks of her critics: but we want women
who shall turn the trades into fine arts. Do you smile
at the expression? It is legitimate. France has al-
ready answered my demand. A finer statue than the
"Moses" of Michael Angelo would be one womanly

362 THE COURT.

model of patient thoroughness. A finer picture than
the glowing pencils of Titian and Claude ever fused
into a canvas would be the prospective elevation of
manual labor.

The fine arts are already obedient to woman's will.
To ivhat woman is it reserved to make the useful arts
pay tribute? Dependent upon the ** rights to labor,"
as we have already seen, is "woman's civil equality."
If all the fields of human labor are thrown absolutely
o])en (and you admit that they ought to be) ; if women
enter and grow wealthy therein; if every second
woman, for instance, were an intelligent property-
holder, — is it credible that she, or her husband for
her, would remain contented in her present minority?
Would she not want a seat in the legislature to pro-
tect her projierty, a vote to control ai)propriations and
taxes? There are no revolutionists like the indus-
trial classes.

It wtis the discontent of merchants and artisans
which hunted Charles Stuart to the block, and paved
the way for English freedom. It was the discontent
of trade, a long-entertained moral disgust, culminat-
ing in indignant contempt at a Stamp Act, which
secured American independence , — I wish we could
say, American freedom as well. Create, then, a class
of wealthy working women, you who are ambitious
of a female franchise, and society will be forced to
give you your desire.

Wendell Phillips says, that, when woman is once
brought to the ballot-box, men will cry out, ** Educate

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 363

her!" in self-preservation. If this be true (and I am
not sure that it is; for agreat many popular elections
are at this moment carried in the Middle and South-
ern States, to come no nearer home, by the uneducated
class, partly by the dram-shops indeed), — if this be
true, however, it is a ''poor rule which does not work
both ways;" and we may go farther than Mr. Phil-
lips, and say, he will also cry out, "Give her some-
thing to do!" that she may understand the interests
of property, and be qualified to plead for them. Mr.
Phillips plants himself upon the right of suffrage, and
goes back to secure education and free labor, for State
reasons. He has every right to do it; but, on the
other hand, we may rest upon our undoubted right to
education, and go forward, with safe, strong steps,
to claim the right of suffrage. When a majority of
women find the means of thorough education open,
then a much greater number will seek actual employ-
ment, and immediately the interests of property will
compel them to clamor for suffrage. Do not misun-
derstand me. It is not a nation of paid underlings,
of ever so intelligent clerks and apprentices, men or
women, that will control the springs of government,
and overthrow institutions as well as prejudices, if
they stand in their way: it is the heads of firms, the
movers in great undertakings, the proprietors of mills,
the builders of ships, the contractors for supplies, per-
sons conversant with large interests, and quick to see
their jeopardy, which, as women no less than men,
must secure the elective right.

364 THE COURT.

How I should rejoice to see a large Lowell mill
wholly owned and managed by women! What is to
make it possible? — only, that the unoccupied women
of wealth and rank, at this moment in the Common-
wealth, should combine to build or buy such a mill.
Suppose it icell manaj^ed, representing ultimately a
million of dollars: do you l)elieve it would long re-
main without political power? Just as the testy trade
of Upsal demanded the franchise for its eighty-one
women, so would the Lowell mill.

Every year, these ten years, our sturdy friend Dr.
Hunt has sent up her protest to the city assessors.
She has not (juite had the heart, as I wish some
woman ha<l, to let them sell her household goods over
her head, for non-payment of taxes; but the City
Ciovernment sits as serene and patient under her in-
flictions as if she had never spoken. Her protests
probably go back to the l)ulp of the paper-mill; and,
but for the newspaper, we should never Know that
they were written. But five thousand female prop-
erty-holders, calling their own caucus, and storming
the City Hall with well-concerted words, would com-
pel any government to listen; would compel com-
mittees to sit, and departments to act. Let it be
your first duty, then, to add to the number of intelli-
gent female workers.

Last summer, I heard one of our friends say,
that the reason that men did not wish women to
enter medical societies, and receive medical diplo-
mas, was, that they were unwilling to be detected

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 365

in their own double-dealing and malpractice. I
should not be willing to indorse a statement so
broadly made. Mean men may justify it: but the
men I have known, the men who have been at once
my inspiration and my strength, — these men were
not mean; yet among them even the bravest doubted,
at first, as to the expediency of our discussion.

These man have felt a tender reverence for moral
purity in woman. They have seen laborers of the
lower class fall as if smitten by a pestilence. They
had not faith to save the world at such a cost. From
the malpractice and guilty dread of mean men, then;
from the sensitive horror of the noblest, let us learn,
at least, that the duty woman owes the State is a
moral duty. A full understanding of this will give
her courage to press her claims. It is the power of
conscience and love which she is to bring to bear on
the ballot-box, and which is to mould, with her aid,
questions and interests hitherto untouched by any
higher impulse than the love of gain.

I cannot leave this statement of human rights,
without claiming for woman one right of which men
very commonly deprive her; in behalf of which soci-
ety makes no clamor, and about which the most radi-
cal reformers say very little. I mean woman's right to
find man in his proper place, as counsellor and friend.

As father, to find him interested, equally with his
wife, in the spiritual custody and training of his
daughters; giving thus some portion of each day to
imbuing young womanly souls with manly strength.

366 THE COURT.

As brother, to find in him wise respect for woman-
hood, and helpful free communion.

As husband, to find him, unless there is manifest
interposition of Providence, always at the head of
his family, always the support and counsellor of his
wife, as she in turn is to be his; making his love her
shelter, his strength her dependence, his experience
her guide, his manliness the complement of her
womanliness.

As a son, to find him always anxious and ready to
minister, provident to think, patient to bear, and will-
ing to act; never shirking, from idleness, the duty
which an active mother does not slirink from bending,
perhaps breaking, beneath.

Society sets man free from every conceivable fam-
ily duty, without a word. On the other hand, it
binds women down to them with cords of iron, and
is ])itiless if a single one be snapped. I do not a.sk
society to require less of woman, but more of man.
There is an immense amount of cant, intentional and
unintentional, talked upon this subject. Last Janu-
ary. I heard one of our wisest and best public teach-
ers s])eak upon the constitution of the family; and,
when he had sjioken whole pages of solid sense, he
said this foolish thing, — that the life of the family
rested in the mother; that, when she died, the chil-
dren must scatter, the father could not hold them
alone, but that the father might be faithless or dis-
sipated, might abide in foreign countries, might
wander for years a stranger, and still the family

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 367

sacredness be unbroken. I do not believe it. I pro-
test against such a view of the family, as a great
public evil, and one which no public teacher should
strengthen by any heedless or sentimental words.

No man has a right to ask any woman to be his
wife, who means to sacrifice her life to his own love
of business or pleasure or vagrancy; who does not
mean to stand strong at her side till death. I speak
for the heart of all womanhood when I say, that no
good woman would ever accept such an offer, if she
supposed she were to be idly left to fulfil its duties
alone. If God had intended to rear women independ-
ent of manly influence, he would never have consti-
tuted the family. It is because every woman needs
every man that its laws are absolute. If the physical
legitimacy of the family depends upon the mother, the
spiritual legitimacy depends upon the holy faithfulness
of the father. When death or sickness or imperative
duty takes her beloved ones from her, God sends to
woman the Comforter, who helps her to bear and do
her double duty. Yet even this angel is born of a
voiceless sorrow. It was in recognition of this human
need, as much as of the divine love, that Theodore
Parker was accustomed to pray to Him who is both
Father and Mother.

Do you object, that, under the present constitution
of society, man cannot find time for this fidelity?
When woman becomes an active worker, adding to
the resources of the household, man is set free from a
portion of his care. The future offers him ample

368 THE COURT.

time; the present, more than he uses. I wish I could
see him as anxious to make ac(iuaintance with his
own young children as with the gay society of his
neighborhood.

The actual guardianship of society is now thrown
into woman's hands. It does not l)elong to her: it
belongs to men and women.*

Individual men shrink from the idea of being "gov-
erned by their wives." From traditional indolence.
however, and that sentimental respect which does not
permit a man to sit in a woman's presence, the
''world" has certainly come to be governed l)y ''its

* This passage was oriinnally proniptnl by some reflections on the rhnn^s
•which have occurnxl in donicntic life in Btjston.

Here the family, even among those of the highest social rank, had once a
sacred simplicity pleasant to remember. Men were accustomed to take their
three meala with their wives and children. The latest dinner-hour waj two,
P.M.; and suppers were unheard of. The evening party began at seven; and
young girls went freely and uninvite<l from house to house, with their needle
or their book.

How greatly all this is changed, my readers, many of ihem, feel still more
deeply than I; and, with this change, the formation of "clubs" of various kinds
has brought alwut others far more important.

A young marriinl latiy of rank and fashion was lately lamenting to me the
isolation of hu-sbands and wives, fathers and children, consequent upon club-
life.

"But," she concluded with a sigh, "if my husband had no club, he would
expect a hot supper for a friend two or three times a week; and how could I
ever accomplish that?"

This inilolence of womm lies at the bottom of manj- serious social evils. The
woman who will not, health and fortune permitting, make herself responsible
in such a case for any number of hot suppers, deserves to see her own happiness
wither, her own hearth made desolate.

It is needless to add, that if women would educate themselves to be true and
noble companions to their husbands, and resign on their own part all that IB
unsound, and therefore unbecoming, in fashionable life, hot suppers would
^ease to be a desideratum, and men would pass pleasant evenings without ibem.

THE UNITED-STATES LAW.

wife.'* Worst of all, nobody punishes it even by a
sneer.

The historical development of woman's social prog-
ress corresponds to the logical statement upon which
I have insisted.

Nearly two centuries ago, Mary Astell would have
established a college for women; but the bigotry of
Bishop Burnet defeated her plans. The niece of a
beneficed clerg>'man, she had not the courage to press
her schemes against the open opposition of the church.
Many other efforts, like hers, to secure and make use
of education, led the way to a recognition of a de-
cided bias in the individual: so when, a century
later, Mary Wollstonecraft was born, the way was
open for the assertion of the right to labor. This
assertion is hardly indicated in her most celebrated
work; but it gives pungency and effect to the dreari-
est pages of her novels.

In Australia, when a female child is born, the natives
break her finger-joints; an artificial distinction, which
they seem to think more decisive and enduring than
God's own limit of sex.

Mary Wollstonecraft saw, that civilized society,
enslaved by tradition and custom, imposed condi-
tions quite as arbitrary, and, to all practical pur-
poses, broke every joint in a woman's body; leaving
her helpless, to depend on the strength and skill and
affection of man.

A passionate and thriftless father, who spent more
than three daughters could earn, and whom she never-

370 THE COURT.

theless protected to her dying day, did not give her a
very high idea of the security of such dependence.
The response to her appeal was heard in a myriad
of distinguished voices, and seen in the consecutive,
chosen, and persevering labors of Harriet Martineau
in political economy, of Anna Jameson in artistic
criticism, of Mary Carpenter in the reformation of
criminals, of Florence Nightingale in sanitary reform,
of Caroline Chisholm in emigration, of Mrs. Griffith
in marine botany (a special study, which she may
almost be said to have created), o( Janet Taylor in
practical philanthropy among seamen, and nautical
astronomy.

This selection of duty shows the advance of the
movement. Formerly a woman might be literary in
a general sense: now she ha<l the oversight of the
field, and might choose the place and kind of her
work.

All this prejiared the way for the advent of Marga-
ret Fuller, and l)rought about the condition of which
she was the exponent. She caught the rumor which
floated in sul)tle discord all around her. Her quick
insight detected every true and living germ of thought
in the confused social deposits and exhalations. Out
of the discord, she wrought a quaint and scholarly
music; out of the refuse, she enriched a fragrant gar-
den: and this song, this outgrowth, had an essential
music and beauty, and were caught at once to the
popular heart.

That the division of labor was already taking place,

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 371

was obvious enough to her: so she claimed, in ad-
vance, the right of suffrage. Society was already
prepared to make this claim, but only discovered its
readiness as it listened to her enthusiastic song. Like
Deborah, our friend struck her cymbals; and, when
the heart of the people shouted consent, they ''made
her a judge over them."

Although it was doubtless owing to many older
causes, it seemed as if her statement of the ''great
lawsuit" in 1844 led to the first Woman's Convention
at Seneca Falls in 1848; and, in 1850, the National
Woman's-rights Association began the yearly work
in which it has ever since persevered.

Man, as well as woman, has been forced to respect
this work, moved by the moral destitution in the low-
est, and the profane inanity in the highest, ranks of
life, which is the result of our social depravity.

Profane inanity , I repeat; for every helpless woman
is a living, intolerable blasphemy against the Most
High. Not more a blasphemy than every helpless
man; but society neither exp)ects, defends, nor pro-
vides for, helpless men. It is only the helpless woman
who is expected and approved.

Often do we hear it said, that no law forbids Ameri-
can women to work.

Neither, it has been responded, is there any law
which forbids Chinese women to walk; but the care-
ful ligatures, so closely pressed by unsuspecting moth-
ers about those tender feet, do not do their work more
surely than the inevitable restrictions of society.

372 THE COURT.

In summing up this constantly accruing list of
influences and changes, I must again direct your
attention to the fact, that, from the earliest dawn of
modern civilization, women have been, in some na-
tions at least, invested with political power.

The mock-marriage, by which the woman's entailed
suffrage served a fraudulent purpose; the abbesses
called to Parliament in right of abbey-lands, the per-
mission accorded to the eighty-one women of Uj)sal,
the position of the French ''Dames de la Halle," the
female stockholders in the East-India Company, that
one j)ersistent female property-holder in Novia Scotia,
the fifty-dollar proclamation-money in New Jersey, —
all indicate that there never has been, and never mil
be, any serious difficulty about woman's voting in
any age or any country where the right to vote de-
j)ends upon the possession of property, and where
she herself professes to desire it.

Understand, then, that the abstract right to vote is
not the question for you to consider: that was settled
some hundreds of years ago.

The practical question for American men to put to
themselves is, whether their own democratic experi-
ment is a failure. Will you go back to the property
basis for your own franchise? or do you still profess
to believe, that man — as man, as child of God — has
a right to reign, which does not depend upon broad
doubloons or broad acres? And, if man has this
right upon a simple human ground, how can you
denv it to woman?

THE UNITED-STATES LAW. 373

Will you say that she is not human, — that she has
no soul?

Even Mahomet did better than that. Some one
once asked him if the marriage-tie were immortal,
and if a husband might claim his wife in the next
world : —

"If the man be the superior being," he replied, "he can claim
his wife or not, as he chooses; but, if the woman be the superior,
the decision must rest with her."

And what Mahomet thus prophesied of the world
to come is clearly true of the world that is. There is
no such thing as cheating either God or humanity.

Let him who aspires to rule make himself superior
in understanding and moral purpose, and he will
rule.

No possibilities, visible or invisible, need daunt
him; but, let him be false by one hair's breadth, and
he carries his doom in his own bosom as certainly as
the flawed crystal at the approach of frost.

You are, then, to base your demand for woman's
civil rights upon her simple humanity, — the value of
the soul itself.

If you deny this foundation for her, you deny it for
yourselves, and the Declaration of Independence is
only an impertinent pretence.

It may not be easy to push this truth home, and
force your friends and neighbors to consider it; but,
once convinced in your own minds, you cannot escape
from the responsibility.

374 THE COURT.

Wendell Phillips once told us of an old catechism,
printed, I think, at Venice in 1563, which contained
the following question and answer: —

Q. How shall I show my obedience to God?
A. By never doing any thing which is disagreeable to my
neighbor.

Is it possible that this catechism is still in general
use?

Fashionable morality is of so loose a sort, that to
do any thing disagreeable to one's neighbor is still, in
the estimation of most people, the unpardonable sin.
People who are capable of hesitating on that account
need not be greatly anxious about their resiK)nsibility.

Our cause does not need them; resting, not on
timid self-deceivers, but on immutable truth, and the
hallowed recognition of woman herself.

Society still cries, like King John in the play, —

"If not, fill up the measure of her will;
Yes, in some measure, satisfy her so,
That we shall stop her exclamation!**

And woman, serener than Constance, may whisper
back, —

"Wherefore, since law is perfect wrong,
Why should the law forbid my tongue to cry?"

TEN YEARS:
AN APPENDIX.

"The only respect in which all men continue for ever to be
equal, is that of the equal right which ever>- man has to defend
himself; but this involves a source of much inequaUty in respect
to the things which any one may have a right to defend." — Adam
Ferguson.

TEN YEARS;

AN APPENDIX.

''To go on working, I consider the only thing to do; and, when
friends urge this after every fresh eflfort, their doing so in
itself contains a kind of verdict." — Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdt.

TH ERE are some items of interest, that have come
under my observation, for the first time, during
the last few years, which I have not found it pos-
sible to add to the preceding lectures without de-
stroying their symmetry. I therefore offer them in
an Appendix. They are not placed here because they
are unimportant, but simply that the later progress of
public opinion may be set forth by itself.

For the last five years, the women of the United
States have held few public discussions. They have
done wisely. Circumstances have proved their friend.
Nothing ever had done, nothing ever will do again, so
great a service to woman, in so short a time, as this
dreadful war, out of which we are so slowly emerging.
Respect for woman came dnly with the absolute need
of her; and so many women of distinguished ability
made themselves of service to the government, that
we had no single woman to honor as England had

378 TEN years:

honored Florence Nightingale. With us, her name
was legion. But with the prospect of peace comes
the old duty of agitation; and we find ourselves again
summoned to our work, and again anxiously awaiting
its results, — anxiously, for the public work of women
is an object which still attracts the gaze of the curi-
ous; and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a
single woman has a retrograde effect, which very few
seem able to measure.

Our reform is unlike all others; for it must l)egin in
the family, at the ver>' heart of society. If it l>e not
kindly, temperately, and thoughtfully conducted, men
everywhere will be able to justfy their remonstrances.
Let us rather justify ourselves. My last reix)rt to any
convention was made to those called in Boston in
1859 and 1860. Between that time and 1863, I
printed five volumes, which are nothing but reports
upon the various interests significant to our cause.
During the last four years, I have watched the devel-
opment of American industry in its relation to women,
and have, through the newspapers, aroused public
feeling in their behalf. My labor is naturally classed
under the three heads of Education, Labor, and Law.
A proper education must prepare woman for labor,
skilled or manual: and the experience of a laborer
should introduce her to citizenship; for it provides
her with rights to protect, privileges to secure, and
property to be taxed. If she be a laborer, she must
have an interest in the laws which control lalx)r.

In considering our position in these three respects.

AN APPENDIX. 379

it is impossible to offer a digest of all that has occurred
during the last six years. What I have to say will
refer chiefly to the events of the last two.

EDUCATION.

The most important educational movement of the
last two years has been the formation of an American
Association for the Promotion of Social Science, with
four departments, and two women on its Board of
Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Association was
organized, with seven departments, and seven women
on its Board of Directors; one woman being as-
signed to each department, including that of law.
Any woman in the United States can become a
member of the American association. If the oppor-
tunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault
of women themselves.

During the past winter, the Lowell Institute in Bos-
ton, in connection with the government of the Massa-
chusetts Technological Institute, took a step which
deserves public mention. They advertised classes for
both sexes, under the most eligible professors, for in-
struction in French, mathematics, and natural science.
As the training was to be thorough, the number of
pupils was limited, and the women who applied would
have filled the seats many times over. These classes
have been wholly free, and have added to the obliga-
tion which the free Art School for women had already
conferred.

380 TEN years:

On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at
Poultney, Vt., celebrated its Commencement. Seven-
teen young ladies were graduated. Ralph Waldo
Emerson delivered the literary address, and two days
were devoted to the examination of incoming pupils.
Feeling very little satisfaction in the success of col-
leges intended for the separate sexes, I take more
pleasure in speaking of the Baker University, in
Kansas, which was chartered by the Legislature of
that State in 1857, as a university for both sexes.
It has now been in active operation for seven years.
A little more than a year ago, Miss Martha Baldwin,
a graduate of the Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio,
wiis apjwinted to the chair of Greek and Latin. She
is but twenty-one years of age, but was elected by
the government to make the address for the faculty
at the opening of the Commencement exercises, and
seems to have given entire satisfaction during the
year.

Howard University was chartered at the last se? sion
of Congress, for the education of all classes of stu-
dents, without distinction of sex, race, or color. It
has purchased three acres of land in a pleasant part
of Washington, and is now ready to receive about
twenty-five students. Rev. Dr. Boynton, chaplain of
the House of Representatives, is President of the
Board of Trustees.

St. Lawrence University-, Canton, N. Y., a univer-
sity still very young, graduates both men and women,
on precisely the same conditions. Civil engineering

AN APPENDIX. 381

and political economy are the only optional studies
with the women. It reports one theological student.
Lombard University, Galesburg, 111., does the same;
but I know nothing of its standard of scholarship.
It is only within the last year that I have been able
to visit the most conspicuous colleges in this country
in which women are taught with men. I consider the
system of mixed classes an immense advantage, as it
secures the standard of scholarship, prevents all fool-
ish ''hazing," and places personal character and moral
deportment in their right relations to classic study.
It prevents also such instruction in the classics as
must necessarily deprave the estimate of woman.

OBERLIN.

About all that I knew of Antioch, before I went
West, was this, — that it was a college for the in-
struction of both sexes. I would like to have my
readers know more of Antioch than I did, and to feel,
without seeing it, the same intense interest that
warms me now. They have heard of Oberlin, I sup-
pose,— heard of it as a sort of fanatical way-station
between the district school and Harvard University,
where men, women, and "colored people" are all
taught together. If I should show them what Ober-
lin has actually done, I think they may see more
plainly what it is possible for Antioch to do: so I
shall begin with some account of this college, which
has "saved the North-west."

It is no idle boast: and, when I had stayed a week

382 TEN years:

at Antioch, and was thoroughly roused to a sense of
its immense importance; when I had seen how admi-
rably fitted was Dr. Hosmer for the work given him
to do, — I decided this in my own mind; namely, that
if any one thing had stood in the way of Antioch
hitherto, if any thing had prevented her complete
work, it was the Eastern prejudice, the idea that men
and women could not be educated together. And, as
they had been trying this experiment at 01)erlin for
thirty-two years, I thought I would go there, and see
how it had worked. If I had known then, what I
know now, that out of the bosom of Oberlin twenty-
two colleges had sprung, and that, of the twenty-two,
ten are at this moment officered by her own gradu-
ates, I think I might have spared myself the trouble.
Here are their names; for you will care more for
Oberlin, if >ou get some glimpse of the work she has
done, before I tell you the details of her story. I
have j)ut an asterisk against the names of the col-
leges whose presidents are graduates of Oberlin. All
of those named receive pupils of both sexes.

Ohio. — Baldwin University, Berea, three colleges and one uni-
versity, 326 pupils, 1846; Heidelberg College, Tiffin; Antioch Col-
lege, Yellow Springs; Mount Union College, Alliance; Otterbein
College, WesterviUe, a Gallery of Fine Arts forming, 360 students.

Michigan.— *0\i\ei College, 308 pupils; ♦Hillsdale College, 609
pupils; *Albion College; *Adrian College, with an endowment of
$300,000.

Wisconsin. — Madison University; *Ripon College, 87 pupils.

AN APPENDIX. 38^

Illinois. — ^Wheatpn College, 219 pupils; Lombard University^
Indiana. — *Union Christian College, Merom, 115 pupils.
Minnesota. — *Northfield College.
New York. — Genesee College, Lima; Elmira College.
Kentucky. — Berea College.

Kansas. — State University, Lawrence; Lincoln College, Topeka;
Baker University.
Iowa. — Grenell College; *Tabor College, 192 pupils.

To these we may add Oberlin herself, with 1,145
pupils for the term which has just closed, and the
prospect of a college in Missouri, which her president
has recently been solicited to organize. Wherever I
have obtained the catalogues of 1866, I have recorded
the present number of students in these colleges. To
those I have not marked, it will be fair to allow an
average of 210 students. Those are not high schools,
be it understood, but colleges in the proper sense.
There is no doubt, that Oberlin, as the principal edu-
cational influence in Ohio, imposed upon Antioch
and all other "Christian" colleges the necessity of
educating both sexes.

In 1832, Oberlin was a little religious colony, born
into a complete wilderness out of the Presbyterian
Church. The plan of the colony involved a school,
for which a tract of five hundred acres was given.
The sale of the remainder of a tract of six thousand
acres furnished a small fund with which to begin
teaching. A year later, the students of Lane Semi-
nary determined to hold an antislavery prayer meet-

384 TEN years:

ing. The trustees forbade it. "You are right," said
old Dr. Beecher, when the mutinous lads appealed to
him, — "you are right; but we are too weak to hold
Lane Seminary on anti-slavery principles. Go and
make it possible for us." They went — Theodore
Weld and Henry B. Stanton among them — to speak
the truth at Oberlin. Arthur Tappan railed from the
Broadway Tabernacle the man who had been in the
front of the great awakening which has swept
through the land, instinct in ever>' fibre of his being
with the spirit of aggressive Christian work. ''Go,"
he wrote to President Finney, — "go and teach the
young men whom Lane refuses." One hundred thou-
sand dollars was ])ledged by the merchants. Oberlin
studied in summer that her pupils might teach all
winter. So, jiromising to return to New York for the
winter sea.sons. President Finney found his way, one
muddy spring morning, to Oberlin. AVhat he found
there was two frame-houses in the midst of the forest,
and half a dozen log-cabins. He found also his sixty
students.

Very soon they had no end of difficulties to contend
with. A jealous college, that had wanted Dr. Finney
for its president, did its best to break down Oberlin.
The criish of 1837 came; and Arthur Tappan, and
the rest who had not paid out capital, ceased to pay
interest. It wavS necessary to raise $50,000, and Pres-
ident Finney went to England and did it. Every
man's hand was against them. The cross-roads were
ornamented with pictures of fugitive slaves, pursued

AN APPENDIX. 385

by lions and tigers, and running in the direction of
Oberlin. But when Oberlin became a station on the
underground railroad, and the slave-hunters actually
came there after their chattels, the case altered. The
neighborhood took part with the college, as if by
miraculous conversion, and the offensive pictures dis-
appeared. Then a thousand scholarships were insti-
tuted, at $100 each. Some were perpetual; some for
six, eight, or ten years. On the interest of this in-
vestment the college now lives. The scholarships, as
they fall in, increase its means. It costs $15,000 per
annum, and $15 is the student's yearly fee. He rents
his scholarship of a broker in the town. The college
is managed with exquisite economy, and the most
perfect attention to essential neatness.

For twenty years the college sent out into the West
five hundred anti-slavery pupils yearly, to take the
post of teachers, ministers, editors, and lawyers.
They were heretics, so they were pushed farther and
farther West. For the last fifteen years, it has sent
out a thousand yearly. In all, twenty-five thousand
men and women have gone out from her bosom, who
have eaten and drank and recited at the same board
with the colored man. Through all her pecuniary
troubles, her original teachers have stayed by her, have
given up all else for her sake; and President Finney
has never been without a colored student at his table.
There are two large churches in the town; for a
population of four thousand persons has grown up
to supply the wants of the college, which has the

29

386 TEN years:

great advantage of still retaining the services of those
who originally created it. Last year, Dr. Finney, now
nearly eighty years old, resigned his position as presi-
dent, but still remains at the head of the Theological
School. I had always thought Oberlin bigoted to
evangelical ways. I did not find it so. I was made
as welcome to cross-question classes as if I had been
an ordained graduate of their own. All theological
teaching is done by discussion; and the fact that the
colleges which have grown up under her graduates
are of all persuasions, from the Methodist to the Chris-
tian, will show that doctrine is not urged. In all the
recitation-rooms, questions were freely asked by both
sexes; and this questioning is encouraged by all the
professors but one, a young man from Yale. *'Yes,"
said President Fairchild, himself a graduate of Ober-
lin, when I had pointed this out; *'yes, that is what
remains of New-England stiffness. Six months will
convert him: we shall let him take his own time." I
have never seen any thing like the enthusiasm this
college inspires in those who labor for it. Would that
I could see a man bred at Harvard with the same
patient fire in his soul as President Finney! As I
knelt by his side morning and evening, I felt that
under his ministry the very stones must cry out. The
twenty-five thousand men sent out from Oberlin did
not go out as citizens merely, but as teachers. I was
not surprised to find, that, a few months before the
Proclamation of Emancipation, a letter had gone to
Washington, from President Finney, entreating Mr.

AN APPENDIX. 387

Lincoln to "recognize the hand of the Lord in this
matter." In Oberlin, it is believed to have substan-
tially modified the proclamation. Oberlin sent eight
hundred and fifty men into the field during the rebel-
lion. Professor Peck, our minister to Hayti, is the man
who was once imprisoned by slave-hunters in Cleve-
land jail. An indignant mass-meeting was held in that
city. Six hundred sabbath-school children went from
Oberlin to greet their imprisoned superintendent, and
the prosecuting attorney thought it best to give up the
case. Professor Monroe, married to a daughter of
President Finney, is our consul at Rio, and is well
known as a controlling political power in Ohio.
One of the faculty headed the first Oberlin regiment;
a graduate of the Theological School, the second;
Colonel Cooper, of the third, who went through with
Sherman, is still doing antislavery work in Arkansas ;
and the present Governor of Ohio, Major-General
Cox, also married to a daughter of Mr. Finney, has
a record so brilliant, that it demands a volume in
itself.

During the war, the college realized one unexpected
advantage from the presence of women. The female
pupils kept the college working! In the original con-
stitution of Oberlin, it was stated that its main object
was "to diffuse pure religion throughout the Missis-
sippi Valley, and to elevate the female character."
To both these objects it has been religiously faithful.
In the Ladies' Library Room I saw a picture of Camp
Dennison. It was drawn by one of the graduates;

388 TEN years:

was sent from camp to college, with the inscription
beneath, "From the boys at Camp Dennison to the
girls of '61, — the dearest girls in all the world." It
was not put out of sight, but proudly shown to me.
I have never been in any educational institution where
the interests of the pupils so evidently rule. The va-
cation comes in winter, that the pupils may pass it in
teaching; but the professors do not then take a vaca-
tion. They open a winter school, where students
who are behindhand may make up deficiencies. I
do not mean that all the pupils go through the entire
college course: many cannot afford it. They stay as
long as they can, and go reluctantly away.

They follow the fashions at Oberlin: the Conti-
nental pronunciation took possession of the Creek
and Latin class-rooms last year. They employ un-
dergraduates to teach the preparatory students at
thirty cents an hour. The common or town school
has 830 pupils, 180 of whom are colored. In the col-
lege, the colored pupils are 5 to 100, and the female
pupils 40 out of 50. There are scarcely any rules.
The few that are printed are enforced as friendly ad-
vice. President Finney says he has often known a
year to i)ass without an opportunity for a presidential
admonition. The management of the girls seems to
me admirable. The teachers feel no doubt of their
method; therefore they show none. Once a fortnight
the lady principal meets the ladies, and talks with
them privately on all questions of womanly habits
and manners. The splendid endowment of Vassar

AN APPENDIX. 389

College could not give to Oberlin a woman better
suited to this purpose than Mrs. Dascomb. Once a
week there is a religious meeting.

The college has just now the brightest prospects.
Its old buildings were far less convenient than those
at Antioch; but at a late Commencement an appeal
was made, and by a spasmodic response, like that
which recently gave us $30,000 for Meadville, the
graduates subscribed as much for a new ''Ladies'
Hall." The contracts were made before the war, the
expenses managed with scrupulous prudence; and
now a beautiful brick building, 121 feet by 121, is
opened. It has a library, reading-room, and parlors;
and a dining-hall, to which the male students are
admitted, and where truly excellent board is given
for three dollars a week. The kitchen would do
anybody's heart good. On every floor is a wood
and water room, where the wood and ashes go up and
down on a dumb-waiter, where water is carried up in
a well-protected pipe, and slops may be thrown into
a sink. Two excellent new buildings for recitations
will be ready for the spring term. Some idea of the
admirable tact and prudence which have prevailed at
Oberlin may be gleaned from the following anecdote :
Thirty-three years passed before a colored teacher was
employed in the Preparatory School. "We knew,"
said President Fairchild, "that we must not try the
experiment till it was sure to be a magnificent suc-
cess." In 1865, Oberlin had in Miss Fanny Jackson
a pupil worthy of the experiment. She had been a

390 TEN years:

slave in the District of Columbia, and so puny, that
at an early age, she was sold to her own aunt, a f reed-
woman, for a trivial sum. She was sent here, and
with fear and trembling now yielded to the wish of
the president. That no one might he compelled to
enter her class, two advanced classes in English gram-
mar were organized, one under the present wife of
Dr. Finney. On the first day, an over-grown lad
came to the president, and said, "My father would
not like it very well if he knew I was taught by a
woman, — but a woman and a negro!" "Stay in
the class three days to please me," said the president;
and, at the end of that time, the boy refused to be
removed. After a day's absence from illness. Miss
Jackson was received with cheers; and, when her class
had to be subdivided, the heart-burnings of those
who had to leave it were pitiable. She is now teach-
ing in the Colored High School in Philadelphia, where
she will remain till she has paid the price of her free-
dom. The brilliancy of her classical teaching is con-
sidered very remarkable in Philadelphia.

It remains only to consider the double system.
Everybody at Oberlin was loud in its praise; no one
would teach now in any other sort of college. The
presence of women secured discipline. There was no
chance for " hazing" or any other antiquated folly. Pu-
pils and teachers who had gone from Oberlin to Vassar
both missed the pleasant excitement of the old life.

"But," said Pres'dent Finney, when I turned from
all the rest to him, "it must not be forgotten that we

AN APPENDIX. 391

have had great advantages. We came here for a
religious reason; our pupils came for years. It is only
lately that they have been sent. I expect that some
difficulties may arise, but none worse than would
arise in a neighborhood-school. It is God's way to
rear us." The old man showed me, with great emo-
tion, a confession, signed by three young girls, and
read at college prayers in 1837. They had been walk-
ing, and met one of the students with an improvised
sledge; without thinking, they jumped on and took a
drive. There were no rules against it; but, when they
came home, they remembered how much depended on
their prudence as members of an antislavery institu-
tion, and wrote the confession of their own accord.
One of these lovely women is now the wife of Presi-
dent Fairchild.

I record with pride the history of Oberlin, the first
college which undertook to teach resident pupils of
both sexes. I feel that it has been a great success.
I am ashamed of the half-denominational prejudice
which kept me from taking a warmer interest in it,
in advance; and I greet its new life under President
Fairchild, a graduate of the institution, with the warm-
est feelings of hope and admiration.

It has just received $25,000 from the executors of
the estate of the Rev. Charles Avery, of Pittsburg,
who left $150,000 in trust, to be devoted, according
to the best judgment of the directors, to the ''educa-
tion and elevation of the colored people in the United
States and Canadas." The conditions are, that the

392 TEN years:

college shall never make any discrimination, on ac-
count of color, against colored students, and that it
shall furnish free tuition to fifty of its most needy
colored students who may apply for it; preference
V)eing given to twenty to be nominated by the Ameri-
can Missionary Association.

ANTIOCH.

The road to Antioch is hard to find: indeed, it
would seem as if the trustees had specially secluded
it, — made interest, perhaps, with the railroad.4 to
prevent the cars from stopping there, for the special
protection of the young people! From Cincinnati,
wo wind along the lovely banks of the little Miami,
through nurseries and hillside terraces, through groves
of oak and sycamore, and birch-trees stretching out
white, bewildered arms. Pigs are quietly grazing in
the woods, as if it were their nature to '*chew the
cud;" there are groups of tiny powder-houses, made
small, the ]ieoi)le say, because they are ** expected to
blow up once a fortnight"! Heavy loads of corn and
hay wind along the terraced roads; a gay-looking
negro on horseback takes off his hat; two children are
pulling a boat across the Miami; there are no houses
along the shore, only safe-looking spits of sand jut
out here and there; and, at last, having come the ten
miles from Xenia in a private carriage, we roll on to
Antioch Plain. I had heard that the college was
on high land; so I was a little disappointed to find it
on a table among the hills, which did not command

AN APPENDIX. 393^

any marvellous extent of country. As for the col-
lege, it has evidently made its toilet for posterity. I
could not get a glimpse of its two fine towers and
broad front, till I wandered down to the railroad
track, and looked at it from the vicinity of a lime-
kiln and a sorghum-raill. For some unknown reason,
it turned its back on the village in the beginning, and
pranks its beauty in full sight of that cursive popula-
tion which travels by steam.

Yellow Springs is a pretty little place to live in, —
an economical one, certainly, for there isn't a thing
in it to buy; and, when we have looked at two or
three little churches and Judge Mills's pretty park,
we are quite content to go through the grounds of the
Yellow Springs House, look down on the glen from
the quaint, long, low southern piazza of the Neflf
House, and finally get home as we may, by log-bridges,
and banks of moss, over which the walking-fern is
striding. Ten miles of hedge, made of the Osage
orange, surround the NefT Place, which a wealthy
family in Cincinnati refuse to sell; but which is des-
tined, in the far future, for a large hotel. In the little
glen, — where a beautiful cascade falls, and tortuous
rapids sputter and foam, and tiny fish dart up and
down, and great graceful trees bend to shelter us, —
we may find all the beauty of the White-Mountain
passes. Two or three miles off, there are persimmons
in the woods, and fossils under the soil; and, on Sat-
urdays, pleasant parties go with Mr. Orton or Pro-
fessor Clarke to find them. The "Yellow Spring,"'

394 TEN years:

which gives the town its name, is of course largely
impregnated with iron. It is imprisoned in a stone
tank, which it colors brown; and it changes a rusty
iron ladle to gold. It is a tonic; and, not far from the
spot where it bubbles up, there is a pretty summer-
house, where those who come to drink may sit and
rest. As we walked toward it, a little brown rabbit
skipped across the grass. From every high point in
the glen, there are lovely views of the college and
town.

Dr. Hosmer has just introduced a change into the
Sunday-morning service at the chapel. He has taken
the service-book of James Freeman Clarke, and, be-
tween reading and chanting, devised a matin service
of great beauty. No musical professors could have
done greater credit to the first performance than the
students themselves. It made the bare, whitewashed
walls of the chapel seem as sacred as a grand cathe-
dral.

I did not look into the books at Antioch. Those
at Oberlin I thoroughly investigated; and the strict
economy the figures showed would distinguish hon-
orably any institution in any land. But, as far as I
can judge from oral testimony, the fees of the stu-
dents and the interest of the endowment fund here
amount to S13,000, and do not quite provide for the
annual expenses. There is, therefore, no fund for
repairs, none for scientific instruments, none for the
library; and, while the president and professors feel
that a further endowment will sometime be needed,

AN APPENDIX. 395

— nay, is needed noWf — ^yet they also feel that they
must show what work Antioch can do, before they ask
further sympathy. Still, there are some few things
which the wise prudence of the trustees, the thought-
fulness of loving friends, the surplus of full purses, can,
in a quiet way, provide.

The pupils at Antioch make no complaint of their
commons this year; yet it is undeniable that they
should be better than they are. The commons are
provided at Oberlin and Antioch in the same way;
that is, by a family entirely disconnected with the col-
lege. At Oberlin, the table presents an attractive
appearance. It would be grateful to any hungry per-
son, and board is furnished at $3 a week. At An-
tioch, a pleasant and friendly woman has charge of
things; but no great variety seems to be offered, and
the board is $3.50 per week. Both these prices seem
to me, after investigating Western markets, starvation
prices; but it is evident, that, on this point, we have
something to learn from Oberlin. If the president
and faculty of Antioch should visit Oberlin, where they
would be most kindly received, they would see, per-
haps, that the difficulty lies in the cooking-apparatus.
Oberlin offers a first-rate kitchen; Antioch, one very
far behind what most of the pupils would find at
home. I suppose no one will deny, that, when the
average social standing of the students in these West-
ern colleges is considered, it is desirable that they
should find at the college-table a standard of cooking
and serving which is a little in advance of that to

396 TEN years:

which they have been used. The food may be plain
and without variety, but it should be thoroughly nice
and inviting of its kind. The ladies of any one of our
city churches might undertake to furnish the kitchen
at Antioch, and they could not have a better model
than the kitchen at Oberlin. To advance the stand-
ard over i^revious experience, is, I think, a necessary
part of education here.

Still farther, cisterns should be built in the upper
stories of the dormitories, into which the waste-water
may run from the roofs. Pipes leading downward
from this should supply one sink on each story, and
this sink should also carry away the waste-water from
ihv rooms. A large "dumb waiter"— I u.se the
word for want of a better — should be provided in
each (lomitory to carry up wood, and carry down
ashes and dry dirt. I have alrea<ly shown that this
is done at Oberlin: and, if cisterns are not possible,
then reservoirs and a forcing-pump should take their
place.

There are but two dormitories, — one for men, and
one for women; and when we consider, that, beside
studying, the pupils have to help themselves by saw-
ing wood and other manual labor, it will be acknowl^
edged, that to bring their own wood and water up
two or three flights of stairs is more than we can ask
of them.

The library and scientific apparatus are ver>^ defi-
cient for present needs. In the scientific department,
some means of protecting the apparatus already ob-

AN APPENDIX. 397

talned is greatly wanted. Microscopes are needed for
scientific investigation. In the library, a translation
of the "M^canique Celeste," modern scientific books
generally, Smith's '' Bible Dictionary," and the leading
works on English literature, are required. Trench,
Muller, Taine, have not yet found their way to Yel-
low Springs.*

It seems to me, that, before Antioch, there now opens
a great career. If her trustees and her faculty will
but keep faith in her methods, surely we are bound to
help them to the utmost. The personal friends of Dr.
Hosmer also, who realize the nobility of that enthu-
siasm which made him willing to accept such a post
while ''looking towards sunset," ought, I think, to
make the position as easy as possible, by anticipating
these practical wants. Five hundred dollars would
supply the most necessary books to the library.

But, if Oberlin does such noble work, what need of
Antioch? Why should we strive to sustain an insti-
tution at such a continual cost, if one already estab-
lished is competent to do its work? Let us get a
glimpse of what Antioch can do, and then we shall
be better able to answer these questions. In the first
place, we are in possession of buildings worth now
$180,000, and of twenty acres of land, worth $10,000.
The land was a donation, in the beginning, from
Judge Mills, the great man of the village, who per-
haps fancied that a growing college would increase

* Thew have been supplied since my return to Boston.

398 TEN years:

the value of his real estate; and for this property,
worth now nearly $200,000, we gave $50,000. For
its proper appropriation we are responsible; and I
think we have work enough to do, though Oberlin
has saved the North-west, and though her new halls
should be crowded thrice over.

In the first place, Antioch is to be a missionary
station. No one who has not travelled through the
West can imagine the thirst of the people for spirit-
ual food. I think those who know lea.st about it are
the Western ministers themselves. I always found
them sceptical about it, when I spoke to them; and
I could not ver\' well sff>', what I was sometimes com-
pelled to feel, "It is because you could never satisfy
this want, that it does not show itself to you." To
Dr. Hosmer, however, with his warm, genial soul,
with a temper conciliatory and discreet, the people are
willing to speak. Beside the daily college prayers,
there are services in the chapel on Sunday at half-past
eight in the morning, and at three in the afternoon.
During the last year, the audiences at the Sunday
preaching had dwindled to a score: since Dr. Hos-
mer's arrival, it averages about two hundred and fifty;
and, of course, townspeople, who come to the chapel
regularly, grow in sympathy with the college and its
purposes. Dr. Hosmer has promised to supply the
Christian pulpit in Yellow Springs for eight Sundays,
which gives [Mr. McConnell liberty to do missionary
work for the same time. The little town of Troy has
some difficulty in keeping a minister. Dr. Hosmer

AN APPENDIX. 399

promises him four Sundays, that he may go away,
and so add to his substance. He goes also himself
to the Universalist church in Columbus; and at
Cleveland, where about twenty Unitarian families
are hoping sometime to have a church, he promises
them an occasional service if they will pay the ex-
penses of transit. Professor Hosmer, whose preach-
ing is thoroughly appreciated, in the neighborhood,
has also preached in Marietta; and either he or his
father stands ready to supply Mr. Mayo's pulpit
when that gentleman undertakes the missionary
work, which has already made him one of the most
useful of the Western clergy.

Who are the people that have this college in
charge? What sort of pupils are likely to benefit by
the education we offer? If we know a little about
them, perhaps it will kindle a warmer interest. Be-
side the two Hosmers whom we know, there is Dr.
Craig, Professor Weston and his wife. Professor
Clark, and Mr. Orton, with four teachers under him
in the preparatory department. Dr. Craig was the
man whom Horace Mann thought it constituted an
era in his life to know. For fifteen years he was the
minister of the church at Blooming Grove, Orange
County, N. Y., a church which has existed for more
than a hundred years without a creed, and which is
governed by seven deacons and seven deaconesses.
Professor Weston and his wife divide the classical
department between them, having both taken the
degree of A.M. at Antioch.

400 TEN years:

Professor Clark is the son of the famous Metho-
dist minister in Chicap;o. He was professor of math-
ematics in Michigan University, and went abroad
for two years to fit himself more thoroughly for his
work. The war called him home; he raised a com-
pany, was made major, and, being taken prisoner,
was thrown into Libln*. There, he says, one of our
Boston boys saved his life by sharing his supplies
with him. He was removed to Macon, and, while
sharing all the horrible experience of the stockade,
succeeded in digging a tunnel, through which he
would have escaped; but some other prisoners doing
the same thing, and the escape of one being sure to,
lead to the detection of all, he waited honorably for
the second tunnel to be completed. Meanwhile he
was removed to Charleston, and put under (Jilmore's
fire, where, at last, his exchange wa.s effected. When
Professor Clark left Michigan University to come to
Antioch, he made a sacrifice })orn of the true mis-
sionary sj^irit. May we share his spirit sufficiently
to strengthen his hantls in the new work! Mr. Orton
is most admirably fitted to his department, and has
an excellent corps of teachers under him. Among
them is one, the daughter of a mechanic, that went
from Worcester to assist in building the college, who
got her own education at Antioch by alternate years
of study and teaching, having to earn one year what
she spent the next. A more exquisite model school
than that connected with the college, I never saw.

Among the older pupils of Antioch is the Christian

AN APPENDIX. 401

minister of Yellow Springs, the Mr. McConnell of
whom I spoke, who may be called, if you prefer it, a
brigadier-general. He was born humbly, in Ohio,
had only the rudest schooling, was a Christian minis-
ter before he was twenty, and married before he was
twenty-one. He was preaching in Troy when the
first gun was fired at Sumter. He raised a company
at once, and got a lieutenant's commission. In actual
service, he was soon made a captain. He kept with
General Grant throughout his Western campaign,
and returned from Pittsburg Landing the colonel of
his regiment; then re-enlisted for the war, went
back to the front, kept with the Western army, and,
at the close of the war, was mustered out a brigadier-
general. He did signal service in many battles, but
esf)ecially before Nashville, where his brigade, assisted
by a negro brigade, broke Hood's centre by a very
gallant charge. He went to Atlanta with Sherman,
and could never weary of telling me how the Sanitary
and Educational Commission followed the army with
their fostering care, ever present, it seemed to him,
like the blood which supplies with food the minutest
nervous fibre of the human frame. When he returned,
the people would have carried him into Congress ; but
he declined. Then they offered to make him a judge
of probate, with a salary of S2,500 a year; but he told
them he had chosen the pulpit for his field: and now,
preaching in Yellow Springs, he domes into the col-
lege classes, and, hoping to take his degree, keeps
faithfully all the college rules.

80

402 TEN years:

Still another pupil, now thirty years old, raised a
company for the war. He was at the fall of Vicks-
burg, had not been at school since he was ten years
old, but made $1,800 by buying and selling grain, and
brought it here to carry him through college. When
I cross-examined him in Greek history, I found he
had read Grote! The teacher of the village school at
Yellow Springs has had a more vexatious experience.
He had finished his third year at Antioch, when he
went into the army. He became an aid to three
Western generals successively, and was with Grant
when Lee surrendered. He saved $300 of his pay to
carry him through his last college year, but had only
been home a few days when a burglar stole it! He
has taken the village school for $900 this year, studies
hard; and the faculty have voted, that, when he can
stand a certain examination, he shall take his degree.

It is for such students that Antioch is open. One-
third of her present pupils are women. Pleasant
levees are held once a fortnight at the president's
house, where the two sexes mingle gracefully. The
girls have a literary society, which they call the Cres-
cent; the young men, two societies, the Star and the
Adelphian. The Star and the Crescent have fitted up
one room under the gambrel very tastefully. The
Adelphians rival them. The folding-doors in the hall
of the latter society open into a pretty alcove, where
a good library is beginning. These two rooms are
the only glimpse of tasteful, home-like comfort that
one gets in any public room at Antioch. I attended

AN APPENDIX. 403

the meetings of the three societies. Before the
Crescents, I heard a graceful little essay on ''A
Rail-fence," from a girl of fifteen. From the Stars,
I heard a discussion of Roman funerals. The Adel-
phians discussed the possibility of obeying an un-
righteous law, very much as I have heard their elders
do in Congress. Each society had a censor, who took
notes of pap>ers and discussions, and quietly criticised
each performance when it ended. It was noticeable,
that the performances of -the women, making due
allowance for age and opportunity, were far more
graceful and able than those of the men, and a most
valuable help to the latter. Coming home one night
from the Adelphians, I found at Dr. Hosmer's a
Southern refugee, who is educating her children at
Antioch.

Sometime before the war, Mrs. Palmer and her
husband went to East Tennessee from New York,
carr>'ing with them $50,000. I think they must have
opened a store; for she spoke of having on hand a
valuable stock of millinery and medicines. Being
Northerners, they were constantly threatened, and at
last consented to barricade their house. Three times
the rebels stole their horse, a colt only two years old;
and three times Mrs. Palmer's perseverance got it
back. At last they surrounded the house at night,
firing on the peaceable inmates; and Mr. Palmer, at-
tempting to escape over the roof, got three bullets in
his arm. The next day the party came back, robbed
the house, and burned up the stores. The medicine

404 TEN years:

was a great loss: there was no more within reach for
rebel or loyalist. Mrs. Palmer succeeded in hiding
her meat and meal. For eight days she and her
family hid in the rocks, only venturing back to the
house at night to cook and eat a little food. One
night, when the poor wife was so employed, her fever-
ish, half-delirious husband followed her, and, in some
way, attracted the attention of the enemy. A terrible
battle followed, and Mr. Palmer lay on the kitchen
floor with eight wounds in his body. When the mal-
ice of the rebels was spent, Mrs. Palmer went out
with her children, and called the cattle. By keeping
them between her and the house, she succeeded in
getting her husband into the woods. A Union man
finally received and fed him; but it was many days
before his wounds could be dressed. She then es-
caped with her children and the colt, on which they
rode by turns. She had picked up some of the ends
of her burnt milliner\', which she used to barter for
food as they went along. She came at last to an
old school-house, where she lay down; and here she
nursed her children through the measles. Here, after
many weeks, her husband came to see her, but was
taken prisoner as he crept away, and was sent to
Libby. She saw many terrible things while she lin-
gered here: one of her neighbors had his bowels cut
out while he was still alive! When she started
afresh, she had seven hundred miles to travel before
she reached Bardstown. One of her five children ul-
timately died of the fatigue and hunger.

AN APPENDIX. 405

"How did you get food?" I asked.

*'I prayed for it," she answered; "and I always felt
sure enough for the hour."

"Who would shelter you?" I continued.

" I never lay out but one night," she answered. " I
used to tell them, wherever I went, that the Union
soldiers must win in the end; that I was going to
them, and would report whoever used me ill. So they
would let me lie on the kitchen floor." At Bardstown,
Morgan's men destroyed her last thing; and then a
United-States sutler found her, and carried her to
Louisville.

The children of many such women will hereafter
seek Antioch. Let them find there a generous pro-
vision.

VA88AR COLLEGE.

Mr. Vassar's magnificent donation is drawing in-
terest at last; and, though I do not feel as much con-
fidence in any institution founded for women alone
as I do in mixed colleges, we ought all to be grateful
for the advanced standard lifted at Poughkeepsie.

Malt has always been a beneficent agent in the
civilization of mankind. Ever since Mr. Thrale
looked kindly on old Sam Johnson, brewers have
seemed to have a generous pride in conquering
human selfishness, and leaving something better than
a family of children to interest posterity. Mr. John
Guy, of Liverpool, a wealthy brewer without chil-
dren, founded there the great "Guy's Hospital." He
was the great-uncle of Matthew Vassar, also a great

406 TEN years:

brewer in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. By and by, Matthew
Vassar found his property close upon a million; and,
as he had no children, he began to think what he
should do with it. He had a good many poor re-
lations, and those who were industrious and deserving
he did not forget. One of them, a young niece, sup-
ported herself by school-teaching. He built her a
school-house, and did what he thought right to ease
her way. At last, sinking in a decline, she came home
to die. As she lay on the sofa, day after day, she
watched him walking back and forth, and talking over
his j)lans. Now and then she would say gently,
''Uncle Matthew, do something for women." After
she was gone, JMatthew Vassar went to see Guy's
Hospital. His connections advised him not to give
away his money. His Baptist friends in Edinburgh
and Liverpool laughed at the idea of a college for
women, which had already entered his mind. He
came home, and tried to plan a hospital; he got up,
and went to bed with the idea uppermost; but all the
time he seemed to hear the voice of his niece, "Do
something for women, Uncle Matthew." Mr. Vassar
has two houses: one, in the heart of Poughkeepsie,
which is opposite the brewery, and, with a long range
of comfortable outbuildings, looks as steadfast and
English as ever Mr. Thrale's own house could do; the
other, a modest little country box, set on a hill among
extensive grounds, and commanding, from various
points, lovely views of the town and river. The pecu-
liarity of this place is, that it is ornamented with all

AN APPENDIX. 407

manner of punchinellos cut in dull gray limestone, and
leering or grinning from every corner of the park. I
did not find out who was responsible for this grim
joke. In 1860, Mr. Vassar, with the humility and
common sense which belong to his character, obtained
a charter, and called together thirty trustees. To them
he transferred more than half his actual property.
When the opening of the war occasioned the failure
of the contractors, he did not draw back, but gladly
gave the additional $150,000 which the increased ex-
pense demanded.

The building is planned after the palace of the
Tuilleries, having at each end the chateau roof and
mansard windows. It is 500 feet long, and 170 deep.
The only drawback to its architectural effect is the
entrance, which should have been a magnificent double
stairway, but is, for the present, only an ordinary
private door. This building stands in the midst of
two hundred acres of lovely sloping and swelling
land. To the right, and quite visible at the porter's
lodge, is the gymnasium and hippodrome under one
roof; to the left, the graceful observatory, which is
also the home of Miss Mitchell and her father.

In the two wings of the building with chateau roofs
are five private dwellings, rented for a moderate sum
to the resident professors. In the centre, just behind
the entrance, are the dining-hall, the chapel, the art-
gallery, and the library; also the large drawing-rooms,
where pupils and teachers receive their friends, and
the parlor and office of president and principal. Con-

408 TEN years:

necting this centre with each wing, on four floors, run
long corridors with sunshine and bright windows on
one side, and clusters of students' rooms and recita-
tion-rooms on the other. The rooms are in pretty
groups of four. Three bedrooms open into one study,
the latter made pleasant and home-like by the united
treasures of the occupants. The music-rooms are
" deadened," so that the noise hardly strays beyond the
walls; and the cabinet, where the students in natural
history prepare specimens, is full of cases to preserve
the work. The best that I can say of the building
will hardly do justice to the intention of the founder,
which no one can comprehend who has seen only such
institutions as Harvard and Yale. There is no occa-
sion here to wish for any thing which may perhaps
come when the college is rich enough. Mr. Vassar's
intention was and is to have the endowment perfect.
The building is fire-proof, every partition wall being
of solid brick. There are four pairs of fire-walls, into
which iron doors run on rollers; and between these
are fire-proof stairways, always safe, even if the wood
work should catch fire. There is the physiological
cabinet, with every thing for the use of the professor,
including various manikins and wax preparations.
The library, chiefly of books of reference, holds three
thousand volumes, to be increased at the rate of five
hundred per annum, and is also used as a reading-
room, where newspapers and reviews may always be
found. The art-gallery, purchased at an extra cost of
$20,000, is such as no college in the country possesses.

AN APPENDIX. 409

It consists of good copies in oil, fine water-colors,
including six real Turners, large portfolios of original
sketches, and a perfect library of .works on art and
engravings, — in all, about a thousand volumes. Be-
sides the five hundred pictures, this gallery contains a
few busts and casts; among thenl. Palmer's Sappho in
marble, an ancient wrought brazen shield, and speci-
mens of ancient stained glass. The chapel seats seven
hundred persons, and might hold a thousand. Over
the altar is a beautiful copy of the Dresden Madonna,
by Miss Church, of New York. There is also a fine
organ.

The music-rooms accommodate a "conservatory'^
on the Charles Auchester plan, as well as separate
pupils. Thirty-two pianos are in use.

The building on the outside is laid with brick in
black cement, and has dark stone trimmings, which
prevent its glaring on the eye like a new brick
building. To the right is the riding-school, one
hundred feet by sixty, where thirty horses are kept;
and, in the same building, a gv'mnastic hall, thirty
feet by seventy.

The observatory, eighty feet long and fifty high,
rests on the rock, as well as the great pier. It contains
a telescope made by Fitz, whose focal length is seven-
teen feet, and its object-glass is twelve and a half inches.
There is also a smaller instrument, for the constant
use of pupils, and, on the roof, a good comet-seeker.
There is a beautiful transit circle, made by James, of
Philadelphia, which Miss Mitchell considers invalua-

410 TEN years:

ble of its kind; and a very perfect sidereal clock and
chronograph, from the Bonds of Boston.

Between the observatory and the riding-school, four
hundred feet from the main building, is the gas and
boiler building, from which the college is lighted and
warmed. Beside these, twenty miles of water-pipe
travel up and down the corridors to supply culinary
and domestic needs. I^t us follow them into the
kitchen, and we shall find there every possible conve-
nience of a good hotel, to the steam-filled table on
which the food is carved.

And now, the building once ready for its inmates,
was Mr. \'assar rewarded for the sacrifice he had
made? for all the time and thouglit bestowed on the
outfit? No one had supposed that the school would
be full when it opened in September, 1865; but there
were 353 pupils on hand the first day, and the work
of organizing wa.^ no trifle. When 1 looked at the
teachers and principals in this institution, many of
whom I had known before visiting it. it seemed to me
that each one had been providentially fitting for the
very work Mr. ^'a»ssar now offered. Of the thirty per-
ilous employed. I saw no one that I should have desired
to change. Maria Mitchell, Hannah Lyman, and the
admirable resident ph\sician, Alida Avery, are now
too well known to need any praise of mine. These
persons are all of the faculty; and their names indi-
cate how liberal all the decisions of the faculty must
be. I visited the institution at the beginning of the
second year, in October, 1806. It had already outrun

AN APPENDIX. 411

its bounds. There was talk of still another dormitory.
Four hundred pupils, well born, well bred, in good
health, with more than ordinary education (for the
tests are severe), and with ample means, had come to
meet those teachers. They had come, between the
ages of seventeen and twenty-two, at the very time
when society holds out every attraction. Vassar is no
charity school. Its necessary fees amount to four
hundred dollars; and a girl should have six hundred
to feel happy and at ease. It paid every bill the first
year, but had nothing left for repairs and additions.
To create a fund for this purpose, the fees have been
increased to the above-named sum. When the first
rush of pupils occurred, Mr. Vassar was almost dis-
mayed. **God sometimes gives great thoughts to
very little men,*' he said, and trembled; but, when the
year came to a close, he lifted his hands in serene
gratitude. I arrived at night; and the procession
filing past me to enter the handsome dining-hall,
supported by light pillars, about which were circular
stands for the urns, occupied seven minutes. When
I saw more than four hundred young women seated
in groups of twenty, saw them bow their handsome
heads in silent grace, — a suggestion which came, I
think, from Miss Mitchell's Quaker father, — I felt ex-
cited with happiness. After tea, I walked round and
through the groups of tables; and the bright faces
smiled back at me either consciousness or question.
When they left the dining-hall, they went to the
chapel, where Miss Lyman offers an evening prayer,

412 TEN years:

and, no gentlemen being present, talks to the ladies
in reforence to all matters of decorum; a practice
1 hope to see followed at Antioch. After breakfast
the next morning, I went to President Raymond's
short matin service, and then walked over to the ob-
servatory. There I saw the graceful figures of the
girls bending to the instrument, as they record the
spots on the sun. I saw the daily diagrams in which
they had recorded the position of these spots for the
last year, and other diagrams of lunar eclipses. "Wo-
men make better observ^ers than men," said old Mr.
Mitchell. "They have more patience, more accuracy.
I had been observing thirty years, when Maria took it
lip, and I thought, mebbe, 'twas only Maria; but it is
just the same with these girls. They do better than
I did.'' I don't wonder Miss Mitchell is proud of her
seventeen mathematical astronomers. She is a tender
daughter, as well as a capable "observer;" and she
would not come to Vassar without her father. All the
girls come to the white-haired old man with their joys
and troubles; and I saw a letter from an old pupil to
Miss Mitchell when I was there, which contained this
audacious sentence, left to tell its own stor>': "Was
it not good of God to put it into Mr. Vassar's heart
to spend his whole fortune in making your father's
last years perfectly happy?" In the art gallery I found,
one morning, twenty-five pupils copying; and, in the
musical conservatory, one hundred and seventy-five.
The gymnasium was not quite ready for use; so I
went down to see the girls rowing on the pretty lake.

AN APPENDIX. 413

After school hours, the floral clubs were busy in the
grounds. I cannot say any thing better of Professor
Tenney's pupils, than that they work over their spe-
cimens as enthusiastically as boys. In chemical
analysis, under Professor Farrar, the girls are greatly
interested. The curriculum is such as we find adopted
at all colleges, except that far more time is devoted
to science than is usual at Yale or Harvard, and
room is left for music. Riding, drivinp, rowing
Ac, are extras, only allowed in the time allotted to
out-door exercise. The resident physician, Dr. Avery,
in whom the college is conscious that it possesses a
great treasure, gives a regular course of physiological
lectures.

Matthew Vassar was seventy-six years old on the
29th of April, and that day is a perpetual festival for
the pupils. Could you see him meet the scholars in
the grounds, you would think them all his children. I
had interviews with the president, trustees, and the
teachers; but was most attracted toward this noble
old man. He told me that he meant to go on endow-
ing the college until he died. "Then,*' he said, "I
shall leave nothing for executors to quarrel al)out:
money will be safe in brick and stone.'' He asked me
to talk with him about a culinary and household col-
lege for the proper training of housewives, which he
still wishes to erect. His last gift to the college was
its magnificent cabinet of stones and fossils; one of
the best, Professor Dana thinks, that he ever saw.
Beside the beautiful specimens shown under glass,

414 TEN years:

there are, in drawers beneath the glass eases, similar
specimens which may be handled.

In furnishing Vassar College, no one has had to
think what any thing would cost. When shall we
have an institution for wealthy persons, of both sexes^
with an outfit as splendid? It is a sight which Ober-
lin has earned the right to see.

LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, KANSAS.

But a still more interesting story is that connected
with the establishment of the State University in
Kansas. Its name will be seen on the list of colleges
which owe their existence to Oberlin. This university
is one of those whose character was determined by
the excitement the euccess of Oberlin had aroused;
but its existence was due to two ladies from Western
New York. It will have been seen, by some details
in the body of this work, that an attempt was made
to secure for woman a share in the noble State en-
dowment at "Ann Arbor," Michigan, but without
success. I will tell a part of the story in the lan-
guage of Miss Mary Chapin, then of Milwaukee, the
lady who, with the assistance of her sister, carried
the work out in Kansas.

"Some years ago," she says, "the Legislature of
Michigan decided that girls might be admitted as
pupils to the State University. The faculty of that
institution consulted the 'wise men of the East' on
the subject, and excluded women on the ground of
expediency. If it were necessary to make it a mixed

AN APPENDIX. 415

school, in order to admit them, perhaps they acted
wisely. It is no more just and wise to give the
charge of endowed schools for girls to men, than it
would be to put Harvard and Yale into the hands
of women. Girls need incentive to study, even more
than facilities for it. The fact, that the real education
of the boy begins where that of the woman ends, is
not so depressing as the 'hard work and low wages'
which await her as a teacher. In 1863, Kansas ac-
cepted the grant of land from Congress for the endow-
ment of a State University. The citizens of Lawrence
secured its location in that city, by the gift of forty
acres for a site. The college was not organized; and
it seemed the time and place to decide whether women
should enter endowed schools on equal terms with
men, as pupils and teachers. Many of the most influ-
ential men of Kansas thought it both just and expe-
dient to give women an equal share of the benefits of
the university, and voted for such a result. To obviate
the objection which closed the Michigan University
to women, a bill was drawn up, organizing a double
school; that for girls to be taught by women. Some
objection was made to this unusual provision, and the
time was too short to urge its necessity: so the bill
merely reads, that it may be taught by women. The
date of this law is February, 1864. A school-building
was finished last summer (1866), and the college
opened in September. The regents elected a presi-
dent and three professors at the outset, one of the
latter being a lady. There is some danger that the.

416 TEN years:

two schools will become one, by an act of the Legis-
lature. If this occurs, nothing important is gained;
but, if the present organization continues, woman may
here show what a true feminine culture implies: for,
while woman differs widely from man, like him she
needs development through her own work.'^

I have altered none of the statements in this ad-
mirable letter. It will be seen that Miss Chapin went
to Kansas, desiring to accomplish two things: she not
only wanted education, but position and compejisation^
for women, from the State fund. I want these also;
but I only ask for the first, for I am certain the rest
will follow. Neither do I think it wise to insist that
women shall be taught only by women, until univer-
sities have done the necessary work of preparation.
In all the colleges mentioned on the Oberlin list,
women are employed as teachers: there are already
a good number of professors of Greek and^ mathe-
matics. Nor is the welfare of women alone a sufficient
motive for me. I am satisfied, that humanity and
civilization gain, in the mixed college, more than either
sex can lose. It remains for me to give a few of the
personal details which Mi.ss Chapin's modesty has
omitted. When she first thought it her duty to press
this matter, she knew that she must be in Lawrence,
in order to do the ''talking" which must precede an
act of legislation in America. She corresponded with
Governor Robinson, in reference to a day-school in
Lawrence, and started with her sister to take charge
of it. On their way, they were startled by the terrible

AN APPENDIX. 417

news of the Kansas raid. They hesitated for a little;
but, thank God, in spite of raids, the work of the
world goes on. Miss Mary went on herself in Sep-
tember, and, after a week's residence, decided to defer
the opening of her school. In December, both sisters
went, and began their daily teaching, and the gentle
agitation which was to yield the great result. They
also tried, at the East, to raise money to realize at
once, on a small scale, their ideal of a practical course
of study for women, especially of a scientific school.
*' Science,' says Miss Chapin, "has not yet been
applied to the arts of domestic life. The ordering of
home, as a centre of comfort and culture, has yet to
be considered. Architecture has much to do with
civilization. The laws of health and the means of
social progress lie entirely in woman's province. Hor-
ticulture will do more for her than calisthenics. She
is ready to do useful work, but has no means. A
very wasteful economy denies her this, to lavish thou-
sands on her folly and ostentation."

I cannot detail all the obstacles which Miss Cha-
pin's effort encountered. Mr. Charles Chadwick, of
Lawrence, drew up the bill; General DietzJer and
Governor Robinson pushed it. At the last moment,
the original bill was carried off in the pocket of an
opposing member; but the wit and quick memory of
a woman saved it.

It has been mentioned, that, after its passage, a
lady was elected professor, with a salary of $1,600,
and the same for her assistant. It is almost needless

81

418 TEN years:

to say, this was Miss Caroline Chapin. She has not
yet accepted the position. The two sisters are at the
head of a high school in Quincy, 111., which has this
peculiarity: there is attached to it a school in jnodel-
ling, under the charge of a professed sculptor.

In the first part of this volume, I have intimated
that a new effort has been made, sustained by the
pleading of Theodore Tilton, to open Michigan Uni-
versity to female students. At the moment when
these pages go to press, it seems uncertain whether
this resolution will prevail with the present Legisla-
ture, or whether a motion for a university for women,
under the same regents, will supersede it. The Greek
professor has practically solved the difficulty, by ad-
mitting his o^\^l daughter to his classes, without ask-
ing the faculty. This example was set him, years
ago, by Mr. Magill, in the Boston Latin School.

As these pages go to press, an anonymous state-
ment appears, to the effect that there have passed
examinations for the University of Cambridge, Eng-
land,— Junior boys, 1,126; Junior girls, 118; Senior
boys, 212; Senior girls, 84. It would seem that the
conditions of the opening of this university are hardly
understood. If I am right, these examinations confer
a certain rank on the female scholars, but do not ad-
mit them afterward to the university.

SCHOOL FOR NURSES.

The most interesting educational movement, at
this moment, in that country, is Miss Nightingale's

AN APPENDIX. 419

"Training-school for Nurses," which has been in op-
eration for three years in Liverpool. It was founded,
after a correspondence with her, in strict conformity
to her counsel. As a training-school, it may be said
to be self-supporting; but it is also a beneficent insti-
tution, and, in that regard, is sustained by donations.
A most admirable system of district nursing is pro-
vided, under its auspices, for the whole city of Liver-
pool, all of whose suffering sick become, in this way,
the recipients of intelligent care, and of valuable in-
struction in cooking and all sanitary matters. It is
too tempting an experiment to dwell upon, unless we
could follow it into its details. Its report occupies a
hundred and one pages.

It seems worth while to look into this report, and
examine in detail its method of dealing with sickness
among the poor. When Miss Nightingale drew espe-
cial attention to the want of such schools in England
in 1861, some ladies and gentlemen in Liverpool came
together, and entered into correspondence with her.
Out of that correspondence grew the Liverpool school.
The Liverpool Infirmary, the most considerable hospi-
tal in that city, entered into the plan, and offered its
wards for the instruction of the nurses. The society
proposed to itself three objects: —

1. To provide thoroughly trained nurses for hos-
pitals.

2. To provide district or missionary nurses for the
poor.

3. To provide trained nurses for private families.

420 TEN years:

Nowhere are hospital and private nurses so badly
trained as in England; and Miss Nightingale well
says that half the symptoms which are considered
symptoms of disease are, in reality, indications of a
want of air, light, warmth, quiet, of cleanliness, which
properly instructed nurses would know how to supply.
A want of punctuality in administering food, and of
watchful care in detecting its effects upon the patient,
create other classes of symptoms. The beer-drinking
habits of the people lead to much intoxication; and
we ourselves have seen ladies of quality lying on a
sick-bed, where they suffered for the attention which
a thoroughly stupefied nurse was incapable of giving.
No amount of wealth, as Miss Nightingale testifies,
can secure such nurses as wealthy patients often need,
and for which a thorough hospital-training is required.
The society strengthens her appeal by extracts from
Dr. Howson's paper, read at the meeting of the Social
Science Association in 1858.

The Liverpool school has erected a building, to
carry out its purpose, eighty-five feet by forty. It
has three stories, each of them eleven feet high; and,
by a single glance at the plans which accompany the
pamphlet, one sees that the arrangements for bathing
and ventilation are what those of our new city hospi-
tal ought to be. One lady superintendent, with three
servants, has charge of this building. It has thirty-
one nurses under training. By the wages w^hich they
earn in the second and third years, the expenses of
this Home are nearly paid, leaving a margin of about

AN APPENDIX. 421

three hundred pounds to be supplied by donations. It
is expected to be a self-supporting institution, except so
far as it becomes a benevolent charity, by supplying to
the poor, food and nursing. When the institution was
ready to begin its work, the lady superintendent hav-
ing been some months in training at St. John's College
and the London Hospitial, where the nurses educated by
the Nightingale Fund are to be found, took possession
of her building. Her head-nurses had been thoroughly
educated. Pupils then offered : they were engaged for
three years, the first year to be strictly probationary.
Each head-nurse was to take charge of an entire ward
of the hospital, to be responsible for the medicines
and stimulants, always assisted by one pupil. Each
pupil went first for two months to a surgical ward;
then for two to the medical; then four at the surgical,
and four again at the medical, — one course helping
the other, and both filling the entire year under a
thoroughly trained head. For the next two years, the
pupil is employed without such superintendence wher-
ever need is; and, for each of the three years, receives,
in addition to board and lodgings, seventy dollars.
At the Home there is a good library, and evening
classes are held for the disengaged pupils. A su-
perannuation fund has been started, to encourage
respectable women to enter the Home. At the end
of the third year, the Home has twenty-eight pupils
under training, fourteen hospital nurses, fourteen dis-
trict or gratuitous nurses, and ten employed in private
families.

422 TEN years:

- This gives an idea of the training process; but our
chief interest lies in the district nursing. As soon as
the Home had nurses it felt willing to trust, one of
the experiments recommended by Miss Nightingale
was tried. The wife of a Scripture-reader undertook
to prepare sago, necessaries, &c.; the clergyman of
the parish furnished a list of patients, and a central
lodging for the nurse. The Home sent her out, sup-
plied with cushions, blankets, and bed-rests. She
went into the families, showed them what to do, and
helped with her own hands. At the end of the first
week, she came back, crying and begging to be re-
lieved; she thought she never could bear the sight of
the misery she encountered. But, in a short time, she
was so strengthened by seeing the results of her labor,
that she positively refused to take emplo> ment among
the rich. It is easy to see what great advantages wait
on this form of charity. As instruction is precisely
what she comes to give, the poor cannot resent this
from the nurse; she fears no imposition, for she is in
the house at all hours of the day and night; her little
gifts do not wound, but cheer like neighborly kind-
nesses. It is Miss Nightingale's idea, that such nursing
is a far greater good than the establishment of hospi-
tals. In six months, this nurse found two cases where
the prolonged sickness of the wife had made drunk-
ards of two otherwise steady husbands, and brought
their families to the brink of ruin. The wives were
cured," the husbands reformed, the families saved. A
leaf from her report of cases will show what she did:

AN APPENDIX. 423

1. Asthma and bed-sores. — Lying on a floor; so thin, had to
lift her on a sheet. Dirt, bad air: two children. Husband said he
"was forsaken by God and man." Our nurse goes in, washes
her, changes linen; lends bedstead and bedding, and air-cushions;
cleans and whitewashes. The woman now sits up, and the man
is again hopeful.

2. Internal cancer. — Nurse attended to the surgical operation,
and administration of subsequent remedies. The woman is now
at work.

3. Paralysis. — Nurse attended; gave instruction " and food.
Recover}' complete.

4. A girl — as the doctor said — in a consumption. Hospital
refused her as incurable. Beef-tea, wine, sago, and cod-liver oil
supplied; and, in one month, she could walk to the nurse's lodg-
ing.

Out of all this success, the perfect plan developed.
It had been proved, that the poor were willing to be
taught how to nurse, and to keep their houses clean;
that intense distress might be mitigated, and coming
poverty arrested. It was also proved, that the nurse
80 employed could notify the health commissioners of
incipient epidemics, and obtain for ignorant tenants,
in return, necessary whitewashing, drainage, &c.

The city of Liverpool was now divided into eighteen
districts, each of which, for practical convenience, was
made to correspond to two church cures. The Home
undertook to furnish a nurse to each district, provided
it would elect for itself a lady superintendent, and
raise a subscription for food, medicines, and necessa-
ries. As soon as the superintendent is found, meet-
ings are held to interest the district; each district

424 TEN years:

having an average population of twenty-four thou-
sand and over. A central lodging is then to be
supplied for the nurse, and the district must furnish,
for loan and use, the folio »ving articles: —

One iron bedstead, six pairs of sheets, six blankets, cushions,
bed-gowns, shirts, flannels, wine, meat, sago, bread, coals, arrow-
root, preserves, and vinegar.

If any thing excites one's envy in the current ex-
penses, it is the amount of coals required. To think
of warming forty people for one year for twenty-six
pounds!

The Fuperintendent is supplied with a map of the
district, forms of recommendation, rules for patients
and nurses, and slates and pencils to be hung at the
head-board, to receive the directions of the doctor, and
the inquiries of the nurse. In seven of the districts,
the lady superintendents furnish the supplies at their
own cost! How gladly ought any wealthy woman to
avail herself of so sure a method ! A strong woman is
hired for scrubbing; and very often the first things a
nurse does is to demand whitewashing and repairs of
the Board of Health. In each district, a person is
provided to cook the necessary food; the nurse giving
notice, through the superintendent, of her want?. The
nurse herself confers with the doctors, waits on the
surgeons, changes and cleanses the patient, and ad-
ministers poultices, blisters, leeches, enemas, and the
like. One Liverpool lady defrays the whole cost of
washing the loaned linen for the eighteen districts!
A registry of it is kept by the nurse.

AN APPENDIX. 425-

We need not be surprised to find that this admira-
ble plan has such marked success, that all the Liver-
pool charities are eager to play into its hands. Each
district superintendent is appointed locally; but the
Home has an out-door inppector, who looks after the
district nurses. The superintendents make quarterly
reports to the Home, and hold meetings of conference
by themselves.

There is, at the seaside town of Southport, a hospi-
tal, which furnishes sea-bathing to invalids.

The Committee of Central Relief for the city of
Liverpool are so delighted with this nursing charity,
that they have already offered butcher's meat, three
weeks of seaside bathing at Southport, and coals and
money to any convalescing patient when deemed
needful. The workingmen's dining-rooms offer, on
proper application, warm dinners to convalescents;
and the Home, through its inspector, superintendents,,
and nurses, make sure there is no waste nor misuse.

The statistics for 1864 were as follows: —

Apparently cured 936

Partially restored 456

Relieved before death 488

Still hopeful 180

Hopeless 9

Dismissed 289

Total 2,358

Such a record as this makes one wish to emigrate
to the land where such things are done. The rapid

426 TEN years:

increase of the charity may be judged from the fact,
that, in the previous year, only one thousand seven
hundred and seventy-six patients were treated, and only
six hundred and seventy-two were cured. This report
comes to us with a letter and notes from Miss Night-
ingale. It is prepared with the most beautiful mod-
esty. The names of the paid officers are given; but
we cannot tell from its pages whose were the kind
hearts and clear heads which first responded to Miss
Nightingale's call. Nowhere has benevolent action
accomplished so much as in Great Britain. Such a
work as this may well challenge the gratitude and
admiration of the world.

The "Arnott Scholarship" of Queen's College,
London, — founded by Mrs. Amott in 1865, for the
promotion of the study of natural philosophy, and
the highest scholarship open to women in England
— has just been gained by Miss Matilda Ballard, a
young lady of seventeen, daughter of Dr. W. R. Bal-
lard, a native of New York, and, for some years, the
leading American dentist in London. The prize,
the money value of which is not far from two hun-
dred dollars, consists of one year's free instruction and
perpetual free admission to certain lectures, always
interesting and instructive.

The ladies' classes at Oxford have proved a great
success, and the committee have just issued a pro-
gramme for the present term. The course of instruc-
tion includes Latin, French, Arithmetic, Euclid,
German, &c. The Rev. W. C. Sedgwick, M.A.,

AN APPENDIX. 427

Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, has undertaken
to deliver a course of lectures on the Italian Repub-
lics of the Middle Ages.

On the 26th of October, 1864, a Working-women^s
College was opened in London, with an address from
Miss F. R. Malleson. It is governed by a council of
teachers. In addition to the ordinary branches, it
offers instruction in botany, physiology, and draw-
ing. Its fee is four shillings a year; and the Coffee
and Reading Room, about which its social life cen-
tres, is open ever>' evening from seven to eleven.

In France, the Imperial Geographical Society,
which is, in a certain sense, a college, has lately ad-
mitted to membership Madame Dora d'Istria (Prin-
cess Koltzoff-Massalsky) as the successor to Madame
Pfeiffer. The Princess had distinguished herself by
researches in the Morea.

In Calcutta, Miss Mary Carpenter has been start-
ing schools for Hindoo women, free from all religious
character or sectarian denomination.

deaconesses' institutions.

This seems the proper place also to insert some
details about schools like those at Kaiserswerth, which
I could not procure in an authentic form in 1858.
The Kaiserswerth school opened under Dr. Fliedner,
in 1822, with "one table, two beds, a chair, and one
discharged prisoner"! In 1852, the King of Prussia
laid the foundation of a home for the aged deaconesses
who have served as teachers and nurses.

The school at Strassburg, under Pastor Harber,

428 TEN years:

began, in 1842, with one sister from a higher rank
of life. It undertakes to train servants, and is chiefly
under women's control. Assistance is also given to
clergymen in seeking out cases of temporal and spirit-
ual distress, in detecting imposture, in attending the
sick in their own houses, in teaching the poor how to
nurse and how to cook, in promoting the attendance
of children at school, in co-operating with charitable in-
stitutions to superintend sewing and mending schools,
in influencing, for good, factory girls and servants;
and, in the hospital at Miihlhausen, the women taught
here make up bandages and prescriptions, cook for the
poor and sick, receive the patients, and do out-door
visiting. At Basle, there is a Deaconess House, under
the charge of a daughter of a Basle manufacturer. It
looks after the laboring classes, and provides for the
sick.

The house opened at St. Loup, under Pastor Ger-
mond, in 1842, takes charge of sick children. At
Geneva, a deaconess has had charge for six years;
through whom five hundred servants get their places,
and with whom they find homes when out of health
or work. In 1859, twenty-one were nursed in the
institution.

A house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris, was
proposed by M. Vermeil, in 1830. In 1840, Made-
moiselle Malvesin offered to conduct it; her letter to
Vermeil, and his to her, crossing each other. Holland
and Sweden have opened several of these schools. In
our own country, the Rev. Mr. Passevant, a Lutheran

AN APPENDIX. 429

minister of Pittsburg, Pa., is establishing hospitals in
every State, under the care of women. They are
supported by contributions in all the city church"fes,
except the Catholic. These hospitals are under the
care of a sisterhood, who cannot, as yet, compete
with the Sisters of Charity. It seems to me, that
Mr. Passevant has erred in a most noble work, by
drawing his sisters from the uncultivated classes.
Such a work should bear the right stamp in the
beginning. In Western Pennsylvania, a'so, Bishop
Kerfoot has begun the noble work of endowing his
whole diocese with suitable high schools for girls,
where they may obtain at home, for one hundred dol-
lars annually, what it would cost five times as much
to procure at a distance.

MEDICAL EDUCATION.

As regards medical education, we know of two
colleges, or, rather, of one college and one hospital,
in Boston, where education is given. There is one in
Springfield, and one in Philadelphia. We should be
glad to get more statistics of this kind; for Cleve-
land, where Dr. Zakrzewska took her degree, is no
longer open to female students, and Geneva is con-
tenting herself with the honor of having graduated
Dr. Blackwell. Nine women were graduated at the
New York Medical School for Women, in February of
this year. Professor Willis then stated that there are
three hundred female physicians in the country, earn-
ing incomes of from ten to twenty thousand dollars.

430 TEN years:

There is a female medical society in London. This
society wishes to open the way for thorough medical
instruction, which will entitle its graduates to a degree
from Apothecaries' Hall; and it offered lectures from
competent persons, in 1864, upon obstetrics and gene-
ral medical science. Madame Aillot's Hospital of the
Maternity, in Paris, still offers hs great advantages to
women; of which two of our countr>'women. Miss
Helen Morton and Miss Lucy E. Sewall, have taken
creditable advantage. They are both of them ^las-
sachusetts girls. Miss Morton is retained in Paris,
and Miss Sewall is the resident physician of the Hos-
pital for Women and Children, in Boston.

At present, to obtain thorough instruction in any
branch, women are obliged to pay exorbitant prices,
and receive, as the results of their training, but half-
wages. In Boston, Dr. Zakrzewska has again unsuc-
cessfully asked permission to become a member of the
Massachusetts Medical Society, ^fany physicians,
however, extend the fellowship which the institution
denies, and the "Medical Journal" expresses itself
courteously on this point. Efforts, sustained by the
influential name of the Hon. Charles G. Loring, are
at this moment making to secure the advantages of
the Harvard College lectures to women intending to
become physicians.*

In 1863, there existed in St. Petersburg a stringent
regulation, which prohibited women from following

* The application is declined, as we go to press, on the ground that no pro-
vision has been made at Cambridge for women.

AN APPENDIX. 431

the university courses. A Miss K., who had a decided
taste for medicine, without the means to pay for in-
struction, applied for such instruction to the authori-
ties of Orenburg. Orenburg is partly in Europe and
partly in Asia, and its territory includes the Cossack
races of the Ural. These people have a superstitious
prejudice against male physicians, and are chiefly
attended in illness by sorceresses. Miss K. offered
to put her medical knowledge at the service of the
Cossacks, and received permission to attend the Acad-
emy of Medicine. The Cossacks promised her an
annual stipend of twenty-eight roubles; but, when she
passed the half-yearly examination as well as the male
students, they sent her three hundred roubles as a
token of good-will !

In France, a Mademoiselle Reugger, from Algeria,
lately passed a brilliant examination, and received the
degree of Bachelor of Letters. She appealed to the
Dean of the Faculty at Montpellier for permission to
follow the regulai course, and was refused on account
of her sex. She then turned to the Minister of Public
Instruction, who granted it, on condition that she
should pledge herself to practise only in Algeria,
where the Arabs, like the Cossacks, refuse the attend-
ance of male physicians. Unlike our Russian friend,
she refused to give the pledge. She threw herself
upon her rights, and appealed in person to the em-
peror. This was in December last, and I have not
been able to find his decision. It was doubtless given
in her behalf; for Louis Napoleon will always yield,

432 TEN years:

as a favor, what he would stubbornly refuse as a
right.

A female medical mission is to be despatched to
Delhi, for the same reason. The physicians Font out
are, —

1. To attend native ladies in the Zenanas.

2. To set on foot a dispensary for women only.

3. To train native women as nurses.

Of the medical profession, it should be stated, for
the encouragement of women, that there are over
three hundred graduates from the several medical col-
leges for women; and that there is scarcely a village
throughout the country but has its woman physician,
of greater or less skill. In New York City, there are
many successful physicians beside the Drs. Blackwell.
Dr. Lozior has a practice of $15,000, and owns two
fine houses, earned by her own perseverance. In
Orange, N. J., Dr. Fowler is very popular, and has a
paying practice of S5,000 a year. In Philadelphia is
Dr. Hannah Longshore, with a practice worth $10,000
per annum; then there are Drs. Preston, Tressel, Sar-
tain, Cleveland, and Myres, with incomes ranging
from So,000 to S2.000. In Utica, N. Y., Dr. Pamela
Bronson is a successful physician. In Albion is Dr.
Vail; in Weedsport, Dr. Harriet E. Seeley. In
Rochester, Dr. Sarah DoUey numbers among her
patrons many persons of wealth and fashion, who,
but a few years ago, ridiculed the idea of a ''female
physician." ^Irs. Dolley's practice brings her fully
$3,000 a year.

AN APPENDIX. 433

Dr. Gleason of Elmira, Dr. Ivison of Ithaca, and
Dr. Green, late of Clifton Springs, who has opened a
water-cure somewhere in Western New York, all haye
a large amount of practice, and prescribe with the
greatest acceptance for those who favor hydropathic
treatment.

At Milwaukee, in the autumn of 1866, I found Dr.
Ross. She is one of the consulting physicians of the
Passevant Hospital and of the Orphans' Home. She
has practised with steadily increasing reputation for
ten years. She understands what is due to her posi-
tion, and has had a hard struggle with the empirical
women of the medical profession that crowd the great
thoroughfares of the West. But she would neither
lower her fees nor abate her requirements to compete
with this class. She came of the best surgical blood.
Her grandmother was Mercy Warren, married to
Darling Huntress, of Newbury, and first cousin to
General Warren, of Bunker's Hill. Our famous Bos-
ton surgeons of the same family might be proud of
her reputation. She has established her practice and
her character, and would agree with all that I have
stated in the body of this book in regard to the great
need of medical societies to guard the position of
well-educated physicians, which is now at the mercy
of a worthless college diploma. Dr. Ross goes to the
Paris Exposition of this year (1867), as an agent for
the State of Wisconsin. She deserves the honor;
and the State has done itself credit by the choice.
The professional position of the physicians at the

32

434 TEN years:

New England Hospital for Women and Children in
Boston, is also a matter for general congratulation.

The English Female Medical Societ}^ reports (June,
1866) twenty students and good results.

The physicians of this country have been occupied
this winter in discussing the discovery, by one of their
number, of the active infectant in fever and ague. It
has been found in the dust-like spores of a marsh
l)lant, the Pamella. In Paris, at the same time, a
woman of rank claims to have discovered the cause
of cholera, in a microscopic insect, developed in low
and filthy localities. Her details were so mmute,
that the Academy of Science, which began by laugh-
ing at the introduction of the matter, has been
compelled to listen; and the subject is now under
investigation.

THE PULPIT.

A very interesting account has lately been pub-
lished of Amelie von Braum, an educated Swedish
lady, the daughter of an army officer. She began to
preach in 1843, at Carlshamm, where she lived, in the
lowest dens of vice and misery. She carried with
her a clean cloth and lighted candles, which give
a festive impulse to the Swedish mind; and her
serious words produced an extraordinary effect. In
1856 she removed to Stockholm, and was earnestly
entreated to go to Dalecadin, and instruct the people.
From that time, she has acted as an itinerant evan-

AN APPENDIX. 435

gelist, preaching in summer in the open air. People
listen to her for hours in rapt attention.

In Sweden, there is also Mamsell Berg,* a brave
young woman, who thought herself moved by the
Holy Spirit to teach the young Laps. She could not
get away from the thought that she ought to do it.
A clergyman, to whom she spoke upon the matter,
counselled her wisely: "Endeavor to shake off the
feeling; if you cannot, then accept it as a vocation
from God, and try it for six months." She said, '*If
I go, it shall not be for six months, but for three
years." She went; and the three years became seven.
She seems also to have been a noble and beautiful
creature. She gathered the children around her, un-
der the most difficult circumstances, expending her
little property in putting up a school house for them,
and laying in sacks of potatoes, that she might feed
the half-famishing; learning herself the Laplandish
language, teaching them the Swedish, and discours-
ing to them about the love of God.

In spite of the bitter words of warning which John
Ruskin has thought it his duty to speak to such
women as enter upon theological studies, a good
many women in Great Britain and this country have
engaged in what is properly the work of the Chris-
tian ministry. The only ordained, minister whose
work has come under our notice since the marriage
of Antoinette Blackwell is the Rev. Olympia Brown,

* I believe I am indebted for gome of these items to Miss Howitt's book,
but I have not yet seen it.

436 TEN years:

settled over the Universalist Society at Weymouth
Landing, Mass., and lately called to Newburgh in
New York. Her ministry has been highly successful,
and is to be mentioned here chiefly on account of a
legal decision to which it has given rise. The church
at Weymouth Landing made an appeal to the Legis-
lature, last winter, as to the legality of marriages
solemnized by her. The Legislature gave the same
general construction to the masculine relatives in the
enactment which the English law gave to the old
Latin word in the charter of Apothecaries' Hall; de-
ciding that marriages so solemnized are legal, and no
further legislation necessary.

Mention, too, should be made of Rev. Lj'dia A.
Jenkins, w^ho has been a successful preacher among
the Universalists for the last eight or ten years, and is
now settled at Binghamton, N. Y.

Very recently, during the illness of her husband,
the minister at Bethesda Chapel, Newcastle, England,
a Mrs. Booth occupied the pulpit, to the great interest
and profit of the congregation. Among the Methodists
and "Christians,"* as well as among the Quakers,
women have always been received as preachers. In
October, 1866, I found a Mrs. Timmins settled as the
pastor of Ebenezer Church, three miles from Yellow
Springs, Ohio, where she had been for three years.
Ann Rexford is mentioned as an effective preacher
among the Christians. Her preaching attracted large

* This word diatinguishea a peculiar Unitarian Church, something like the
Methodist.

AN APPENDIX. 437

crowds in the State of New Jersey, some thirty years
ago.

But the most remarkable record, if we except those
to be found among the Quakers, of any single
woman's work in the ministry, is that of Abigail Hoag
Roberts, who was the settled minister of a church
built for her at Milford, N. J., and who died in 1841,
at the age of forty-nine.

With her ministry is interlinked that of two other
women, — that of Nancy Gore Cram, of Weare,
N. H., and a Mrs. Hedges. Mrs. Cram began life as
a Free-will Baptist, and undertook a mission to the
Oneida Indians. The spiritual destitution of Cen-
tral New York in the year 1812 affected her pro-
foundly. Not a preacher of her own denomination
in New Hampshire could be induced to go there.
Disappointed in them, she hurried to Woodstock, Vt.,
and laid the case before a conference of "Christian'*
elders and ministers, then in session. They under-
stood her better. She hurried back to the field she
had left; and, when the ministers followed her, they
were astonished at her work. A church was built for
her at Ballston Spa. She is described as a delicate,
blue-eyed woman, with dark hair, dressing plainly in
black silk, with her hair in a silk net; her whole
appearance and manner befitting her work. She died
in 1816, suddenly, in the fortieth year of her age.
Mrs. Roberts was one of her converts, — a woman
who was a constant preacher, from June, 1814, to
the June of 1841, in which she died, and, for many

438 TEN years:

years, a settled pastor over the church at Milford,
where a monument has been erected to her. More
than once she defended the unity of God in public
discussion with the clergy, whom she brought to
ignominious defeat. She travelled through the three
States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,
where her name is still a household word. More than
once, she was threatened by her own sex with "tar
and feathers." She seems to have been, like Ann
Hutchinson, a witty woman. "If you feel called to
preach," said one minister to her, "why do you not
go to the heathen?" — "So far as I can judge," she
answered, "I am in the midst of them." She had a
large family of children, and was distinguished for
her household skill. She was quite famed for delicate
clear-starching, and, on one occasion, wove with a
hand-shuttle twenty-four yards of woollen cloth be-
tween early morning and nine o'clock at night.
Many people sought her for information. Disliking
one woman's vulgarity, she said to her, "If you be-
lieve in the Holy Ghost, why not use the language
that the Holy Ghost uses?" She was a great suf-
ferer in her latter years, but continued to preach at the
Milford church, where she had four hundred commu-
nicants, and a congregation, at times, of twelve hun-
dred persons, even after she was compelled to lean
upon a staff. The Rev. Eli Fay preached her funeral
sermon, and bore testimony to her great ability. The
life from which I have drawn these particulars was
written by her son, and printed at Irvington, N. J.

AN APPENDIX. 439

Her colleague, Mrs. Hedges, died before her; — a
singular anecdote is related of her. She was exer-
cised with some doubts as to the separate existence
of the soul, and besought God in prayer to satisfy her
mind. It seemed to her, after retiring to rest, that
her soul left her body, passed through locked doors,
and found several unusual adjustments of furniture in
the house, and at last returned to the pale form upon
the bed. She rose happy, but, on trying to prove her.
vision, found every thing in its usual place. A thor-
ough inquiry in the household, however, showed that
the changes she had observed had actually occurred
in the night, and continued for some time. Her expe-
rience was the not uncommon one of the Seeress of
Prevorst.

It will be remembered, that, in the first edition of
"Woman's Right to Labor.," I proposed a deaconess
in every church; and I found, the other day, a little
record in reference to the old church at Amsterdam,
in Holland, which I copy here: —

"In the church at Amsterdam, there were about three hundred
communicants; and they had for pastors two admirable men,
Smith and Robertson, and four ruling elders, as well as one aged
woman as deaconess, who served them many years, though she
was sixty years old when she was chosen. She filled her office
honorably, and was an honor to the congregation. She sat com-
monly in a convenient place in the church, with a little birchen
rod in her hand, and held the little children in much awe, so that
they disturbed not the assembly. She diligently visited the sick
and the infirm, especially women, and called on younger sisters,

440 TEN years:

in case of need, to watch over them at night, and to give other
jissistance that might be required; and, if they were ix>or, she
made collections for them, among those who were in a condition
to give, or informed the deacons of the case. She was obeyed as
a mother in Israel, and a true handmaid of the Lord."

With the exception of "keeping the little children
in muc'li awe," which might or might not have been
(lesira})le, these are precisely the functions which I
desire to see formally renewed. The church at
Blooming Grove, Orange County, X. Y., has existed,
for more than a hundred years, without a creed, and
is governed by seven deacons and seven deaconesses.

The following resolution was introduced bj' the
Kev. S. J. May, at the Unitarian Conference which
met at Syracuse, N. Y., in the first week of October
186G:—

"Whereas women were among the first, the most steadfast,
and the most fearless disciples of Jesus Christ; whereas women
have been, in all ages, the most ready to embrace the religion of
the gospel, and the most constant and devoted members of the
Christian Church; and whereas, in several denominations, women
have been among the most effective preachers of Christianity:
therefore, Rrsnltrd. That we. Liberal Christians, should do well
to encourage those women among us who are moved by the Holy
Spirit to devote themselves to the ministry, and should assist
them to prepare themselves in the siime manner, and to the same
extent, as we deem necessary for young men."

The convention, having just passed a resolution to
admit female delegates to the session of 1868, rather
shrank from this second vote. Yet of what use to
receive delegates, unless they feel free to join in dis-

AN APPENDIX. 441

cussion? and what woman, likely to be sent as a dele-
gate by any Unitarian church, will ever address the
convention until it more than welcomes the above
resolution? To the local conferences, women are
already being elected, and will do great good if they
can get courage to accept their membership practi-
cally, and to speak when they have any thing to say.

It would not be quite honest nor fair to those wo-
men who seek to enter the pulpit, if I did not here
record my own experience in connection with it.

I know very well where my natural sphere of work
lay, and could I have had a theological education in
my youth, or had even the paths of the ministry at
large been open to women, I have every reason to be-
lieve that I should be at this moment a settled minis-
ter. As it was, it never entered my head that the thing
was possible; and except that I taught steadily in Sab-
bath schools, and visited as steadily among the city
poor, I never turned toward ministerial work. In the
first year of my marriage, now twenty-two years ago,
my husband was settled in the city of Baltimore, as
minister at large to the degraded population, which
has a special character (or want of character) in a large
city, in a slaveholding State. I say has, for I cannot yet
sp>eak in the past tense. He had daily schools of girls
and women, and nightly schools of boys and men.
The latter were of all ages from six to forty, and had
been gathered together by a great personal effort. In
this state of things, my husband was taken ill. It fell
to me, in the first place, not only to nurse him, but to

442 . TEN years:

take charge of his night-school. The ladies could do
vory well without me in the day-school; but there was
no clergyman, nor leading man of character and cul-
ture, who could be depended upon to take the general
charge of the men and boj's, among whom were some
desperate characters. I went first in a very storm}'
night; and my Irish servant took her knitting, and sat
upon the steps of the platform while I addressed them.
It happened that not a single teacher braved the storm;
and the school, when I called the roll, responded to the
number of eighty. I told them that I knew how dearly
they loved my husband, that he was very ill, and that
the only way in which they could help him was to be-
have so well that he need feel no anxiety about his
work. They responded at once to this appeal, and I
carried home the best possible account. As Sunday
drew near, — this night-school having been held on
Monday, — my husl^and grew more ill and more anx-
ious. He thought of the large, mixed congregation,
which met him every week, and for which no provision
had been made. We were on an outpost of our faith;
we could not have summoned assistance in season, nor
without an expense we could not well bear. I thought
the matter over; said to myself that it was only like a
large Sunday school; that the fashionable ladies, who
often dropped in to hear the preaching, would certainly
stay away, knowing my husband to be ill: so I told
him quietly that I had made arrangements for the Sun-
day service. He was too weak to make inquiries, but
was comforted at once. He was sick several weeks, —

AN APPENDIX. 443

long enough for me to relinquish reading, and take to
exhortation in pure despair; but he did not find a
small congregation when he resumed his place, and
that was my reward. Perhaps no such step was ever
taken more simply, or with less idea of its natural
consequences. When I came back to Boston, radical
country ministers took pains to ask me to their pulpits.
I shall not soon forget the first time I preached to a
large Unitarian audience, with a good mixture of city
people. It was at South Hingham; the church was
crowded; the country covered with a crystalline mantle
of snow, over which a clear moon glimmered. The
beauty of that night is a i>ermanent possession. So
it went on, till I became, I believe in the winter of 1859
and 1860, the superintendent of the Sunday school at
Indiana-place Chapel, in Boston, where I remained for
five years. This broke up my preaching, for I could
not leave town on Sundays ; but it led to my address-
ing various Sunday-school gatherings, and my being
asked to address Sunday schools when away from home
in the summer. My addressing a Sunday school in
Greenfield in the summer of 1865, while the pastor
of the church was absent with his regiment, led, by his
kind sympathy, to my preaching in the summer of 1866
in the regular Unitarian churches at Rowe and War-
wick, as well as doing irregular service in many other
places. The church at Florence had always shown
me a generous appreciation; and I was often asked
to preach for Theodore Parker's people at the Music
Hall and the Melodeon. I always declined to speak

444 TEN years:

for this last society, not because I do not s>Tnpa-
thize with their purposes in the main, but because
I would not consent to be advertised for a religious
and especially a devotional service in the city which
I make my home. There may be women who, in
the present state of things, can do this innocently and
properly; but / cannot go into the pulpit myself,
except in the regular sequence of my work, and at
the call of duty. The gaping crowd of curious people
who would come to look at a woman in the pulpit,
would disturb the sphere in which it is alone possible
for me to work. It was the custom of the Music-Hall
society to advertise for every Sunday, and they de-
clined to relinquish this advertisement on my account.
The delivering a course of lectures in Hollis-street
Vestry in connection with the Suffolk Sunday-school
Union, in April, 1866, showed me that there was a
work of criticism to be done, — and necessary to be
done, — which I could do: so in going West to examine
the condition of certain colleges, in October, 1866, I
gave it to be understood, that, if I were in any West-
ern city over Sunday, I should prefer to preach for
the Unitarian minister — giving him a 'Mabor of love'*
— ^to addressing an audience at an evening lecture.
This interfered with my pecuniary advantage; but I
believed it was in my power to enter some pulpits
that would not be offered to all women, and I desired
to do what I could to create a demand for the preach-
ing of women. In this way, I preached for Robert
Collyer in Chicago, for Carlton Staples in Milwaukee,

AN APPENDIX. 445

for Mr. Hunting in Quincy, and in the chapels of
Oberlin and Antioch Colleges. I took the whole
service, accepting no assistance in the reading or the
prayer; for it is not well that a woman who fills the
pulpit should seem to shrink from any service there,
and sensitive women will always find their self-pos-
session impaired by any second influence. I received
the kindest sympathy and appreciation from the
churches I have mentioned; and, in every instance
but one, I received the usual fee for my service, vol-
untarily tendered. I think at least twenty other
churches would have been open to me, could I have
gone to them.

I do not offer this explanation of the manner in
which I have been led into the pulpit, stupidly, in
ignorance of the charge of egotism and folly that may
be made against me by those who read it. I have
borne harder things than that charge, for the truth's
sake; and I hope that the real motive of this state-
ment will be transparent to honest and gentle hearts.

I long to see women preparing for this work, for
there are very few men in the field; and, if tl^ere were
more than enough, the pulpit is still an eminently fit
place for a woman. The encouragement I have re-
ceived, will show young women what is open to
them. With a few words of counsel to those who
may desire to speak in churches, I leave the subject.
The dress of a woman in the pulpit should be such
as will attract absolutely no attention; yet it should
be thoroughly graceful and lady-like. A black silk

446 TEN years:

well made, with collar and cufiFs of fine linen, is the
best, with no ornament whatever save the needful
brooch. Peculiarity should be avoided. When we
are trying to win souls for heaven, we must not lose
them, because of a "dress reform," which may wait
patiently, until more important things are achieved.

Again, if the woman who enters the pulpit is a
temperance, an antislavery, or a woman's-rights
lecturer, it will be better for her to give lectures on
these subjects in the week. In the pulpit, she .^^hould
subordinate these subjects to theological reform, moral
appeal, and that attempt to stimulate religious inter-
est and faith in which most men fail. Nor would I
have her, whatever her station in society, refuse the
fee, small or large, which shall be tendered her. If she
has no need of it, her ** poor" will have; and it is impor-
tant to let the ministry of women fall into the same
social and congregational relations as that of men.

There has been a great change in public feeling
since the day, not twelve years since, when I heard
Dr. Parkman refuse Lucretia Mott permission to
speak in the old Federal-street Church.

Among historical instances of the theological influ-
ence of woman, that of the Countess Matilda stands
pre-eminent; but a book by Capefigue, recently pub-
lished at Paris, shows, that Madame de Kriidener was
the first to conceive the idea of the Holy Alliance,
and her influence over the Emperor Alexander was
sufficient to induce him to propose what his allies had
no power to decline. Her purpose was finally accom-

AN APPENDIX. 447

plished, by her engaging the emperor in prayer. She
was finally exiled, and died, I believe, in the Crimea.
It was pretended that her preaching was dangerous;
but, as she did not speak the Russian, that could
hardly be true.

ART SCHOOLS.

An art school, which started some years ago in
Boston, in private hands, finally surrendered its casts,
lithographs, and so forth, to the teachers of the Free
Art School of the Lowell Institute. The female
classes of this school are always crowded, and are
doing a great deal of good. Artists are accustomed
to say very disparaging things of the school at the
Cooper Institute; but I visited it in December, 1866,
and found a very great improvement within a few
years. Under Dr. Rimmer, a most admirable lecturer
on anatomy, there has been an infusion of new life.
The drawings from casts looked better than I have
ever seen them. They have a good master in color,
and the drawing and engraving on wood by the
pupils find a ready market. Two of them. Miss
Roundtree and Miss Curtis, are said to have a high
reputation. I was delighted to find a large class
coloring photographs; for heretofore it has been
almost impossible for women to receive decent in-
struction in this art. The classes are all full; and
three times the number of pupils might be received,
if there were more light in the large rooms. It is
to be hoped Mr. Cooper may some time divide them,,
and put in gas.

448 TEN years:

I have taken advantage of the residence in this
country of a well-kno^Ti member of many societies,
Mrs. Elizabeth Murray, to ascertain what circum-
stances led to the formation of the Society of Female
Artists, in London. To Mrs. Grote, the wife of
the historian, and Mrs. Murray herself, this society
owed its existence, somewhere in the winter of 1854
and 1855. There is no objection to it, so far as I
know, except one apparent on its catalogues, the
present preponderance of distinguished amateur ar-
tists on the Board of Direction. I insert here Mrs.
Murray's letter in reply to my inquiries. The best
artists, such as Rosa Bonheur and Mrs. Murray her-
self, exhibit with this society.

My dear Mrs. Dall, — On my return to England, after an
absence of many years, I found that women labored uider ver>'
disheartening conditions; their professional occupations con-
sisting chiefly of teaching, music and singing, literature and the
fine arts. In the latter department, they came more under my
own personal observation; and I found that, although they were
countenanced by men individually, collectively they were per-
secuted by men, seldom being permitted membership with any
public body, or, when admitted, were not allowed the full pri%-i-
leges accorded to men.

For instance: At the Royal Academy of London, women are
not admitted at all to membership. On the walls of that exhi-
bition may be seen the works of women, which rank among the
best; but here their privilege ends. They assist in bringing their
quota of the entrance fees, the main source of income of the acad-
emy, while they are debarred from all privileges and emoluments.

The two water-color societies profess to admit women as mem-

AN APPENDIX. 449

bers, which they do to a very limited extent ; but even here they
are subject to the same restrictions. Under these circumstances,
the project occurred to me of founding a separate and independ-
ent society, which should include only the works of female artists,
in order to give to those excluded from other societies, opportuni-
ties of asserting their own powers.

The first step was to get up an exhibition to excite public sym-
pathy in favor of the scheme. This was a most difficult under-
taking, as opposition was met with, not only from men, but from
the ver>' women whose interests were at stake; those who were
strong in the profession fearing to lose caste, and the weaker ones
being afraid to act independently.

After much perseverance and explanation, several large-minded
persons of the more moneyed and influential ranks in society
came forward, and assisted, by their cordial co-operation, in
establishing a temporary committee. Money was freely contrib-
uted; and the society had a fair start, opening to the public a
very creditable exhibition of the works of female artists.

Finding that, for the future, I must necessarily be absent from
England, I retired from the Committee of Direction.

The society has continued in a more or less prosperous con-
dition up to the present time, although my plan of establishing
an adequate school of art has not been carried out. Much pri-
vate good has been the result; and I think the class of women for
whom the society was founded, have been raised in position.

Believe me, dear madam,

Very truly yours,
(Signed) Euzabeth Murray.

13, Pemberton Square, Dec. 22, 1866.

In Paris, Rosa Bonheur is now the directress, under
the government, of the ficole Imp^riale de Dessein,
established exclusively for young women.

450 TEN years:

L A B O R.*

The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor,
in the United States, has been such as might be ex-
pected by watchful eyes; and yet reports on the
general question will not read very differently from
those published ten years ago. In New York, women
are still reported as making shirts at seventy-five cents
a dozen, and overalls at fifty cents. These women
have two Protective Unions of their own, not con-
nected with the Workingmen's Union; and most of
them have, naturally enough, sympathized with the
eight-hour movement, not foreseeing, apparently, that
the necessary first result of that movement would be a
decrease of wages, proportioned to the limitation of
time. Ever since the beginning of the war, women
have been employed in the public departments, North
and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather
than of choice. The same causes combined to drive
women into field-labor and printing-offices. All
through Minnesota and the surrounding regions,
women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the
farms, in order to send their husbands to the field.
A very interesting account has been recently pub-
lished of a farm in Dongola, 111., consisting of two
thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman,

*I wish to say in advance, that while the statistics in "The College" and
"The Market" are based on a gold value, and are wholly reliable, I place no
reliance on those furnished in this Appendix. The varying price of gold, and
of the cost of provision and clothing, at the time the tables are made, are
nowhere given, and are important elements in a sound calculation.

AN APPENDIX. 451

whose husband was a cavalry officer. It was a great
pecuniary success. In New Hampshire, last summer,
I was shown open-air graperies, wholly managed by
women, in several different localities; and was very
happy to be told that my own influence had largely
contributed to the experiment. In England, field-labor
is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton,
better known as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers
it a healthful resource against the terrible abuses of
factory life. At a meeting of the British Association,
last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a
woman engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed
that brick-making paid three times better than factory
labor, and ten times better than domestic service. In
addition to i>er8ons heretofore mentioned, in this coun-
try, as employing women in out-door work, I would
name Mr. Knox, the great fruit-grower, who, on his
place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two or three hun-
dred. I have seen it stated, that, during the last four
years, twenty thousand women have entered printing
offices. I do not know the basis of this calculation;
but, judging from my local statistics, I should think it
must be nearly correct.

To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legisla-
ture on the eight-hour movement, the following towns
report concerning the wages and labor of women, in
1866:—

Boston. — Glass Company, wages from $4.00 to $8.00 a week
Domestics, from $1.50 to $3.00 per week. Seamstresses, $1.00
a day. Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day.

452 TEN years:

Brookli.ve. — Washcn^'omen, $1.00 a day.

Charlestown and New Bedford are ashamed to name the
wages, but humbly confess that they are verj- low.

Chicopee pays women 90 per cent the wages of men.

Co.vcoRD pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour.

Fairhaven gives to female photographers one-third the wages
of men.

Hadlev pays three-fourths; to domestics, one-third; seam-
stresses, one-quarter to one-third.

HoLYOKE, in its paper-mills, offers one-third to one-half.

Lancaster pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents
a day.

Lee pays in the paper-mills one-half the wages of men.

Lowell. — The Manufacturing Company averages 90 cents
a day. The Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day.

Newto.n pays its waslierwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an
hour.

North Becket pays to women oncMhird the wages of men.

Northampton pays $5.00 a week.

Sallsbury, for sowing hats, $1.00 a day.

South Reading, on rattan and shoe work, $5.00 to $10.00 a
week.

South Yarmouth, half the wages of men, or less.

Taunton, one-third to two-thirds the wages of men.

Walpole pays two-thirds the wages of men.

Wareh.vm pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to
seamstresses, 50 cents to $1.00.

Wilmington pays two-thirds the wages of men.

Wi.nchester pays dressmakers $1.00 a day; washerwomen,
12 cents an hour.

WoBURN keeps its women to work from 11 to 13 hours, and
paj's them two-tliirds the wages of men.

On the better side of the question, Fall River testifies that
women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.

AN APPENDIX. 453

Lawrence, from the Pacific Mills, that the women are liberally
paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills
pay from $1.00 to $2.00 a day.

Stoneham gives them $1.50 per week.

Waltham reports the wages of the watch-factory as very
remunerative. In 1860, I reported this factory as paying from
$2.50 to $4.00 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a
general statement.

Boston has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each
girl is expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7.00
a week. In the paper-box factory, more than 200 giris are
employed; but I cannot ascertain their wages, and therefore sup-
pose them to be low. I know individuals who earn here $6.00
a week ; but that must be above the average.

The best-looking body of factory operatives that I
have ever seen are those employed in the silk and rib-
bon mills on Boston Neck, lately under the charge of
Mr. J. H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk
Mills in Northampton, owned by Mr. S. L. Hill. The
classes, libraries, and privileges appertaining to these
mills make them the best examples I know; and this
is shown in the faces and bearing of the women.

We are always referred to political economy, when
we speak of the low wages of women; but a little
investigation will show that other causes co-operate
with those, which can be but gradually reached, to
determine their rates.

1. The wilfulness of women themselves, which,
when I see them in positions I have helped to open
to them, fills me with shame and indignation.

2. The unfair competition, proceeding from the

454 TEN years:

voluntary labor, in mechanical ways, of women well
to do.

For the first, we cannot greatly blame the women
whom employers choose for their good looks, for
expecting to earn their wages through them, rather
than by the proper discharge of their duties. Their
conduct is not the less shameful on that account; but
I seem to see that only time and death and ruin will
educate them.

For the second, wo must strive to develop a public
sentiment, which, while it continues to hold labor
honorable, ^^^ll stamp with ignominy anj' women
who, in comfortable country homes, compete with the
workwomen of great cities. There are thousands of
wealthy farmers' wives to-day, who just as much
drive other women to sin and death as if they led
them with their own hands to the houses in which
they are ultimately compelled to take refuge. Still
further, it has come to be knowTi to me, that in Bos-
ton, and I am told in New York also, wealthy women,
who do not even do their own se\nng, have the con-
trol of the finer kinds of fancy work, dealing with the
stores which sell such work, under various disguises.
I cannot prove these words, but they \N'ill strike con-
viction to the hearts of the women themselves, and I
wish them to have some significance for men; for, if
these women had the pocket-money which their taste
and position require, they would never dream of such
competition. One thing these men should know, that
such women are generally known 'to their employ-

AN APPENDIX. 455

ers, and their domestic relations are judged accord-
ingly.

The recent investigations into factory labor in Eng-
land concern rather the condition than the wages of
the women. At flower-making, 11,000 girls are em-
ployed from fourteen to eighteen hours dailj\ In
hardware shops and factories, they work, from six
years of age, fourteen hours daily. In glass factories,
5,000 women are employed, from nine years of age
and upwards, eighteen hours daily. In tobacco fac-
tories, 7,000 women are employed, under conditions
of great physical suffering. As knitters, from six
years old, they work fourteen hours daily for Is. 3d.
a week!

This terrible state of things is partly owing to com-
petition with the labor of French machinery. A great
deal of ignorant prejudice against machines is one of
its results. In Sheffield, files are still made by hand;
while here, in America, we make watches by ma-
chinery! The disposition of the whole community,
both here and in Great Britain, towards this labor
question, is kindly. It has become a momentous
social problem. During the fifteen years that my
attention has been riveted to this subject, I have seen
a great change in public feeling.

I have received the Sixth Annual Report of the
Society for the Employment of Women, of which
the Earl of Shaftesbury is President, and Mr. Glad-
stone a Vice-President. This society has trained
some hair-dressers, clerks, glass-engravers, book-keep-

456 TEN years:

ers, and telegraph operators; but its greatest service
consists in the constant issue of tracts, to influence
developing public opinion. Such an association
should be started in New York.

I should have been glad to inaugurate in Boston,
during the last six years, several important industrial
movements. The war checked the enthusiasm I had
succeeded in rousing; and I have not Ijeen able to
pause in my special work of collecting and observing
facts to stimulate it afresh, or to solicit personally the
necessary means. How easy it would be for a few
wealthy women to test these experiments !

I would first establish a mending-school; and, hav-
ing taught women how to darn and patch in a proper
manner, I would scatter them through the country, to
open shops of their own. As it is, I do not know a
,city, in which a place exists to which a housekeeper
could send a week's wash, sure that it would be re-
turned with every button-hole, button, hem, gusset,
and stay in proper condition. These mending-shops
should take on apprentices, who should be sent to the
house to do every sort of repairing with a needle.

I would open another school to train women to every
kind of trivial service, now clumsily or inadequately
performed by men. If, for instance, you now send to
an upholsterer to have an old window-blind or blind-
fixture repaired, his apprentice will replace the entire
thing at a proportionate cost, leaving the old screw-
holes to gape at the gazer. I would train women to
wash, repair, and replace in part, and to carry in their

AN APPENDIX. 457

pockets little vials of white or red lead to fill the gap-
ing holes. Full employment could be found for such
apprentices.

At Milwaukee, in October, 1866, I found a young
woman well established as a hair-dresser. She be-
longed to a superior class of society, and encountered
great opposition in carrying out her plan. ** People
would treat her much better," said a resident clergy-
man to me, in detailing her struggles, "if she were the
willing mistress of a rich man." She had no taste for
teaching, but I found in her a cultivated and pleasant
companion. Since the war began, a good many
women have been employed as clerks in the public
offices at Washington. There is now some talk of
their removal. If this should occur, it would be in con-
sequence of unfit appointments, and the habits and
annoyances which demoralized women have imposed
upon the departments. The proper place to begin
removals is obviously with the corrupt men, who
have pensioned their mistresses out of the public
coflfers.

In Chicago, I found Fanny Paine, a girl of thir-
teen, acting as paymaster to the Eagle Works Manu-
facturing Company. She will, in one year, pay out a
quarter of a million of dollars. She keeps the time-
sheets, pay-roll, and account-book of each of the four
hundred men employed. She receives about five
thousand dollars a week from the bank, and makes
the proper balances with the cashier, after paying her
men. She knows every man, earns six hundred and

458 TEN years:

twenty-five dollars per annum, and is represented as
perfectly robust. It gave me no pleasure to find so
young a girl in a position so exposed. I would have
her uncommon faculties mature in quiet. The *' Lon-
don Athenffium" lately said, "A phenomenon worthy
of consideration is the increasing number of female
players on stringed instruments in France. At the
examination of the conservatory this year, Mademoi-
selle Boulay gained a first, Mademoiselle Castellan a
second prize. The violoncello has its professional
students among the gentler sex. Madame Viardot is
about to turn her experience to account, by editing a
classical selection of music."

A very dear friend of mine, — Charlotte Hill, of
West Gouldsborough, in Maine, — bom a farmer's
daughter, too deaf to teach, and too delicate to sew,
had an intense love for music. She taught herself
the violin. She then made a profession for herself by
offering to play it at rustic parties; and one year, in
the pursuit of this profession, she travelled more than
eight hundred miles, and laid by three hundred dol-
lars. This money was not spent on jewelry, but on
the best books that our best publishers could furnish.
It takes a genius to do a thing like that, — trust in
one's self, and a far deeper trust in God; but there are
multitudes of women whom suggestion and sympathy
would lead into such thriving ways.

I have heard recently' of a young girl in Shirley,
who supports herself and her father by gunning. She
not only sends game to market, but prepares the

AN APPENDIX. 459

breasts of birds for ornamental purposes. She has
bought her own house by her profits.

When I was at Florence, Mass., in th6 summer of
1865, I drove over to the famous button-factory at
Easthampton. This great industry was founded by
a woman; and, as I had often heard mythical stories
about it, I wished to get at the facts. I found Sam-
uel Williston, a very good specimen of a fine old
English gentleman. He is a man between sixty and
seventy, with hair and beard as white as snow. I
found him in a blue coat with bright buttons, a
buff waistcoat, and white pants, and very willing to
tell his wife's story, if it would ** encourage other
women."

"My wife's father," he went on to say, "was a Mr.
Graves. He was a poor man, with a large family of
children. His wife and daughters used to go over to
Northampton to get knitting from the stores. One
day, all the knitting had been given out; and Mrs.
Graves showed her disappointment so plainly that the
shopman asked her to take some buttons to cover.
In those days, all our buttons came from England,
where they were made by hand; but our tailor had
got out, and wanted some for coats and vests in a
hurry. Mrs. Graves made about a gross, all her
daughters helping, and did it so well that the work
was continued. Then my wife took it up. She got
some of the work from her mother. That was in
1825-26, — forty years ago. I had invested in merino
sheep. I had ninety ewes and a large farm; but 1

460 TEN years:

was a young man, and found it hard to get along.
It looked as though this business would help. My
wife wanted to control the work. She hired girls to
help her, and took all the orders that came. J. D.
Whitney and Hayden & Whitney sold all she could
make. When she had had the business a year, I went
to Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, New
York, — in short, I went all round, — with samples.
I got my orders at first hand, and from that the busi-
ness began.

'*When we heard that machine-made buttons had
been introduced into England, we sent over to buy the
right to make them, and Mr. Hayden introduced them
here.

*' Every man must have his small beginnings," added
Mr. Williston, with an embarrassed blush; "but, when
a man has such a wife as mine, he is lucky.''

It is said that nearly a million of dollars is invested
in this button business at Easthampton. The Willis-
tons are Congregational Christians; and the ''Round
Table" stated lately, that the wealth thus accumu-
lated, besides being of great local value in developing
the resources of the State, had established one semi-
nary, built three churches, and assisted colleges and
schools without number.

It is very rare that the labor of women becomes
consolidated into capital; but there is no reason why
it should not. The mother of James Freeman Clarke,
whose name I use here in compliance with her own
expressed desire, was a wonderful illustration of what

AN APPENDIX. 461

common sense and determination will accomplish.
The petted darling of a wealthy family, Madame
Clarke found herself summoned, by her husband's ill-
ness and early death, to retrieve, almost unaided, the
fortunes of six children. The first money which she
could lay aside, at the head of a boarding-house, lifted
the mortgage from a small property which she knew
she w^s to inherit, and which she felt sure would in-
crease in value. For this property she ultimately re-
ceived her own price, being, to the great amazement
of applicants, her own "man of business" in all nego-
tiations. The small sum it yielded she put out at
interest in new States, where money was scarce, and
multiplied it tenfold before she died, not by careless
speculation, but by investing it wisely in the heart of
the great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee, by buying
what she saw with her own eyes to be valuable. "I
want women to know how to manage their own con-
cerns as I did," she would say. ** It only takes a little
common sense. Women ought not to give up their
property to men, or even ask their advice about it.
The best men will prop up their shaky plans with a
woman's money; but women should watch men, see
where shrewd men put their money, and do as they
do J not as they «ay."

I am sorry that the purpose of this volume does
not permit me to show how this noble woman used
the money she made for the profit, the religious ad-
vancement, and the bodily comfort of those who
seemed to need its aid.

462 TEN years:

One other woman, whose name I am not permitted
to mention, deserves to be spoken of in this connec-
tion. She was an orphan, and began life as a factory
girl with twelve cents and a half. Her father had
never dreamed of any need to educate a daughter.
She took a sister into the factory with her; and, while
one worked, the other went to school, — ^my friend
opening a dressmaker's shop, at times, to speed the
process. While in the mills, she secured, by a wise
firmness, many privileges for the girls. She married,
and, after the death of an only child, sought to make
herself happy, by being of use; and opened, for the
girls whose wages had been reduced, a Protective
Union shoe-store, taking all that one man and eight
apprentices could make daily. At last, she borrowed
a hundred dollars, and went to Lynn, — the first
woman that ever bought goods there. She soon con-
trolled the prices of the trade, opened a second store,
and finally bought out the Union.

Part of her store she devoted to fancy goods, and
for seven years and a half, did all the buying in Bos-
ton. She then went to Philadelphia, leaving the
stores in her husband's charge, and took her degree at
Pennsylvania College. After this, she lectured on
Physiology throughout New England, being often
profitably employed by the corporations to lecture to
the girls. By this time, she owned her horse and car-
•riage, her house, and twenty thousand dollars, beside
having a good practice in a country town. Circum-
stances then carried her to California, where, in three

AN APPENDIX. 463

years and a half, she made thirteen thousand dollars,
partly by her profession, and partly by buying up
Government vouchers, in which the men at the Navy
Yard were paid. She gave gold,, and received green-
backs. Before she left the State, one of its most
eminent physicians came to her to know by what
secret she cured patients whom he had given up.
She showed him the errors of his own practice;
and, when she returned to New England, left, with
perfect faith, her patients in his hands.

If this woman were not still living, I should wish
to record the details of her life; but they suggest so
much, that I have not thought it right to suppress
them altogether.

Mr. Thayer and two ladies have lately attempted,
in Boston, at No. 28, Ash Street, a small experiment
in the way of a lodging-house for girls. This was
first suggested to the ladies, by the misfortunes of a
young woman who came under their notice. They
tried to hire a house, but found it cheaper to buy;
Mr. Thayer being responsible for half the expense,
and each of the ladies for one-quarter. The house
was furnished at the cost of friends. It has gas and
water in nearly every room, and shelters 29 girls.
They pay for light, rent, lodging, and fire, repairs and
service, $1.50 per week, and $1.25. There are two
single beds in most of the rooms. The matron keeps
an exact account of her expenditure; and each week
the stores are weighed by one of the ladies, the waste
being charged, as well as the marketing, to the girls.

464 TEN years:

The board, so managed, costs each girl $1.75 a week.
Some of the girls wash for themselves in the evening,
and a woman is hired for the house once a week.
They take care of their own rooms. The matron
employs a cook. There are only two rules, — that
every girl shall be in at 10 p. m., and that a week's
notice shall be given when any inmate desires to
leave. No supervision is exercised except of the
stores and the matron's accounts. The house was
opened Dec. 15, 1866, and is a success according to
its plan.

Grateful as I am to see this attempt made, I can-
not feel that this plan should be followed for the fu-
ture. Girls do not wish to receive charity, nor can
any experiment be thoroughly successful, which does
not pay, in the long-run, a fair percentage on the cost
of house and furniture. Now, $4.00 a week is, in my
estimation, only the fair cost price of the style of
board and living which these girls receive; and it
could not be kept at that under average manage-
ment.

I do not know the cost of the house, but it would
certainly rent for $600. The taxes upon it would be,
at least, $120.

Now, let us suppose that 30 girls occupy it, each
paying the highest rent of $1.50 per week, which is
$180 a month. In 13 months, they would pay
$2340; a sum which should cover, not only house
rent, house and water taxes, light, lodging, fire, repairs,
and service, but the original cost of furniture and the

AN APPENDIX. 465

annual replenishing. I am sure my estimate of
the rent and taxes is beneath the real value of both;
and it is evident, that no efforts to benefit this class,
on a large scale, will succeed, unless made to pay
better: companies will undertake only profitable
work. I want to see girls unite to furnish them-
selves, in a still more modest way, with what they
need; and I wish to see a system of cooking-houses
established, which shall simplify the whole matter.

In New York, a Working- women's Home is about
to be established, the plan of which was long since
submitted to the public. A building has been pur-
chased on Elizabeth Street, which will afford ac-
commodations for four hundred persons. For this,
$100,000 has been paid, and $25,000 more will be
expended in fitting it up. Half the amount has
already been raised; and the managers are making
strong efforts to collect the remainder. Of its objects,
the " Evening Post " says, —

"In this Home will be found clean, well-ventilated rooms,
wholesome food, and facilities for education and self-improvement.
Girls exposed to the temptations of a city hfe will be surrounded
by both moral and Christian influences.

"The institution is intended to benefit a class of women who
now find it impossible, with their slender means, to procure com-
fortable homes, and are forced to live where moral purity, as
well as health, is endangered.

"It is well known that families and boarding-house keepers
almost always object to female boarders, and that many thou-
sands of sewing-women find it difficult to obtain quarters. Arti-
ficial flower-makers, book-folders, hoop-skirt manufacturers,
packers of confectionery, &c., are compelled, if deprived of paren-
3(

466 TEN years:

tal shelter, to accept such homes and accommodations as the
very limited resources will conmiand.

"It is not intended to make this a charitable institution; but
the prices will be made so moderate as to be within the means
of those who are to be benefited by it, while, at the same time,
the establishment will be self-sustaining."

Mr. Halliday says of it, —

"The whole expense of first purchase, alterations, and furniture,
will be about $140,000. Messrs. Peter Cooper, James Lenox,
James Brown, Stewart Brown, William H. Aspinwall, E. J.
Woolsey and Mrs. C. L. Spencer, have, unsolicited, each contrib-
uted one thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars has been
appropriated on condition that we obtained a like amount in
donations. We expect to have accommodations for nearly five
hundred, and the charge for board and washing will be from three
dollars and a quarter to three and a half per week.

"There will be parlors, reading room and free librar>% and
ample bathing rooms. None of good reputation will be refused
admission; no others can become members of the family."

It is hoped to open the institution by the first of
June.

A Young Women's Christian Association was or-
ganized in Boston in May, 1866, under the auspices of
Mrs. Henry F. Durant. Furnished rooms have been
provided at 27, Chauncy Street, where young women
can obtain information in regard to employment,
boarding-houses, and so on. The applications aver-
age one hundred a month; and the association seeks
to establish a home, where there will be a restaurant
for furnishing meals, at cost, to young women only,

AN APPENDIX. 467

a free reading and library room, evening schools,
rooms for social purposes, and temporary lodging-
rooms. This is a most desirable thing to do; but it
will not be of permanent benefit, if it puts into a
false position any girls capable of self-support. The
funds of wise and kind people must start all such
movements; but, to be useful, they must be, not only
in appearance, but in reality, self-supporting.

During the summer of 1866, Octavia Hill, of Lon-
don, a grand-daughter of the celebrated Dr. South-
wood Smith, reports that, after conferring with John
Ruskin, she had hired houses for poor tenants. She
put them into good order, and kept them in it. She
would allow, in her tenants, neither overcrowding nor
arrears of rent. She had no middle-men. The experi-
ment was wholly successful, and paid at once five per
cent.

Mr. Ruskin 's lodging-houses, as they are called, are
the best that have ever been established in London.
They furnish the cheapest and cleanest lodgings for
the poor, yet pay a good dividend. They are entirely
in the hands of Miss Hill, as Mr. Ruskin himself is
more skilful to remedy any social excrescence than
patient to bear with it. He forgets, I think, what he
once wrote concerning the soul that denies itself an
encounter with pain.

I have mentioned, in the body of this book, the
great number of women who have entered printing-
offices since 1860. I have thought that it might help
women in some other departments of labor, to under-

468 TEN years:

stand how some of these changes were effected, and
in what manner advantages have been secured, which
might easily have been lost. In a towTi that I know
of, a weekly religious paper was printed by eight wo-
men. The most experienced acted as foreman; and
when, in the second year of the war, strikes began in
the printing-offices, a friend directed her attention to
the fact, and showed her how to meet a strike, should
it come, as it did, into her o\\ti town. As soon as she
heard of it, she consulted with the rest of the hands.
Seeing a possible though by no means a certain ad-
vantage, they agreed to be bound by her action in
such an event. At last, the hands employed on the
daily evening paper of the towTi struck, and the pub-
lisher knew not what to do. The girl went to him,
told him she would bring seven able hands with her,
and was accepted at once. He was mean enough to
offer half-pay, which she peremptorily refused. The
eight women entered the office on full pay. They had
not been there a week, before every body rejoiced in
the change. There was no swearing and no drinking,
but a quiet work-room. At the end of a month, the
disappointed men offered to return: their services
were declined, but the publisher was mean enough to
go to his foreman. "My men are ready to come
back," said he: "I have no fault to find with you, but
I can no longer give you full wages." — '*Do as you
please," replied the girl: "you cannot have us for any
less;" and, as the whole seven said amen, the pub-
lisher had nothing to do but to keep them. The

AN APPENDIX. 469

advantage that flowed from union and good sense in
this case are evident, and could easily be imitated
in many directions. During the past winter, Miss
Stebbens, of Chickasaw County, Iowa, has been ap-
pointed notary public; such appointments being still
80 rare as to make the fact worth recording.

LAW

The "British Medical Journal" was lately reported
to have said that more English women seek for admis-
sion to the bar than for entrance into medical practice.
If this be true, it is in marked contrast to the state of
things in this country. Some women have studied
law here; many have written in lawyers' oflScers; but,
so far as I know, not one has desired to be admitted
to the bar: and, in England itself, so far as I know.
Miss Shedden remains the single example of a wo-
man pleading in a court of law.

The number of laws passed the last six years, af-
fecting the condition of women, has been very small.

The New- York Assembly in February, 1865, passed
a law putting the legal evidence of a married woman
on the same basis as if she were a feme sole. The
Massachusetts Legislature have legalized marriage
ceremonies performed by an ordained woman; and in
January, 1866, Mr. Peckham, of Worcester, moved for
a joint special committee "to consider in what way a
more just and equal compensation shall be awarded
to female labor." . On the 4th of April, just past,
Samuel E. Sewall and others petitioned for leave to

470 TEN years:

appoint women on school committees. It is difficult
to conceive on what ground such petitioners had
leave to withdraw. These things are only valuable
as indicating that public attention is still alive.

In Richmond, Va., recently, a charge of stealing
was sustained against a woman, who was afterwards
acquitted, by appeal, on the ground that no married
woman could own her own clothing, and the conse-
quent flaw in the indictment. In consequence, a bill
to secure the rights of property to a married woman,
as if she were a feme sole, has been offered in the
House, to the horror of members who gravely assert
that there can be no marriages, if a man does not
own his wife's wardrobe!

In Missouri, the new Constitution confers on wo-
men the right to make a will; and the Legislature is
considering the subject of introducing women to the
State I'niversity.

In England, a curious decision has recently been
made, in the case of a clergyman, of the Church of
England, who left his children to the guardianship
of his wife, without expressing any opinion as to their
religious education. Joint guardian with the wife
was a brother clergyman, who brings action to have it
decided by the Court where the children shall attend
church. The mother, and a son of thirteen, desire to
attend a dissenting chapel; but Sir J. Stuart, Vice-
Chancellor, decided that the father's religious faith
must decide the matter for the children! Such ab-
surdity TNill do more than any argument to secure the

AN APPENDIX. 471

future freedom of woman. The family history of
Madame de Bedout, recently dead at Paris, furnishes,
also, a remarkable illustration of the absurdity of the
old laws.

The will of Francis Jackson, of Boston, has been re-
centh' brought before our courts to obtain instructions
as to its construction. Mr. Jackson's bequest for the
puriK>se of creating an antislavery sentiment has been
sustained; but the decision reads, February, 1867: —

"The gift in the sixth article, to create a trust, unrestricted
in point of time, to secure the passage of laws granting to
women different rights from those belonging to them under
the existing Constitution and laws, does not constitute a l^al
charity, and is therefore void, and is remitted to the testator's
heirs-at-law."

The gift in question was intended to aid the publi-
cation of such books as the reader now holds in his
band.

A very important convention came together at
Leipsic, in September, 1865. One hundred and fifty
women assembled, pledged to assert the right to
labor, and to bridge the gulf between the compensa-
tions of the two sexes. Madame Louise Otto Peters
opened the conference in an able speech. She stated
that there were five millions of women in Germany,
who could each earn, if allowed, three thalers a week.
A thousand women might find employment as chem-
ists, on salaries of one hundred and fifty thalers a year,
exclusive of board and lodging. Another thousand
might be employed as boot-closers. The foundation

472 TEN years:

of industrial and commercial schools was urged. The
weak point of the speech, as reported, appeared to be,
that it took no cognizance of the fact, that an influx
of five millions of laborers must necessarily lower the
current rate of wjiges she proposed, I mention this
convention in a legal connection, believing that it was
intended to remove some local legal barriers.

A petition from sixty women, of Potter County,
Penn., has just been presented to the I^egislature of
that State, praying for the passage of an act to enable
widows, on the death of a husband, to control the
property accpiired by joint labor, in the same manner
as the husband docs on the death of the wife.

When Freeman Clarke was Comptroller of the
United-States Currency, he decided that a woman,
not being a citiztu, could not be a bank director. I
consider this logical and satisfactory. I wish more
decisions of this kind could be made. If the position
that woman is not a citizen were pushed to its ex-
treme, it would become untenable, her property could
not be taxed, and the necessary remedy would be
apjilied. One bank remonstrated against the comp-
troller's decision, desiring to retain the services of
women "hitherto satisfactory.'' I see, by a Wash-
ington paper, that another national bank desires leave
to diminish the number of its directors; so many of
its shares being held by women, that nine men could
not be found to fill the ofl^ice.

Now, let some bright women buy up, through a
broker, all the shares of such a bank, elect their own

AN APPENDIX. 473

president and directors, and see what the Government
can do. The absurdity of such a position, practically,
is evident to all who know how business is done in
our country towns.

SUFFRAGE.

Dr. Hunt and a few other women have continued
their annual protests, without intermission. In some-
what the same way have petitions recentlj^ been sent
to Congress in behalf of universal suffrage. We had
no expectation that any favorable reception would
await such petitions; but it was a duty to put them
on record, if we could do it without perplexing public
business. What fate they met in Congress, you have
so recently heard, that I have no occasion to record it.
Minnesota, New York, and other States, have peti-
tioned their Legislatures to the same effect.

On the 7th of February, 1867, the House of Repre-
sentatives in Kansas decided, in concurrence with the
Senate, to amend a resolution for the amendment of
the Constitution, by striking out the words *' white"
and "male", and making intelligence the basis of
suffrage after 1870. This action has been since re-
scinded in some way, only the word ''white^' being
stricken out. In Congress, Mr. Noel, of Missouri,
offered a series of resolutions in favor of extending
suffrage to women, and authorizing the calling of a
convention to amend the Constitution in the State of
Missouri. The acting Vice-President, the Speaker
of the Senate, in recording his protest against the

474 TEN years:

Suffrage Bill of the District of Columbia, said, *' Make
it intelligent suffrage, and I will not only, vote for that,
but for women also."

At the recent election of officers for the Philadel-
phia Mercantile Library, the female stockholders were
admitted to the ballot.

The "New- York Express" says: —

"The exercise of the elective franchise for women was practi-
cally illustrated in the election of officers for the Mercantile
Library,' Philadelphia, on Tuesday. A poll was opened for the
female stockholders, who, to the number of a hundred and fifty-
six, cast their votes. Both sexes voted together; and the proceed-
ings were conducted with the utmost propriety, there being no
confusion or disorder, as is too often the case where men vote
alone. The ladies walked up, and deposited their ballots with
as much sang froid as if they were accustomed to the pri^silege.
As illustrating how the thing might he done, this voting at the
library election should be noted."

Some doubts having been expressed as to the fact
of women having voted in New Jersey, first published
by me, on information given by Thomas Garratt, in
my lectures upon Law, I append here a history of
the Constitution of New Jersey in that regard, which
has been gathered by Lucy Stone and Henry Black-
well, as well as an account of my own recent inter-
view with a member of the House of 1807, which
finally repealed the obnoxious clause.

During the recent important discussion in the Sen-
ate upon the proposition to extend the ballot to the
women of the District of Columbia, New Jersey was

AN APPENDIX. 475

alluded to as a precedent. The precedent being
disputed, the following statement was published in
the "Newark Daily Advertiser:" —

"In 1709 a provincial law confined the privilege of voting to
'male freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own
right, or fifty pounds current money of the province in real and
personal estate;' and, during the whole of the colonial period,
these qualifications continued unchanged.

"But on the 2d of July, 1776 (two days before the Declaration
of Independence), the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, at
Burlington, adopted a Constitution, which remained in force until
1844, of which sect. 4 is as follows: 'Qualifications of Electors for
Members of L^slatures. All inhabitants of this colony^ of full
age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation-money, clear estate
in the same, and have resided within the county in which they
claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the elec-
tion, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in Council and
Assembly, and also for all other public officers that shall be elected
by the people of the county at large. '

"Sect. 7 provides that the Council and Assembly jointly shall
elect some fit person within the colony to be Governor. This
Constitution remained in force until 1844.

"Thus, by a deliberate change of the terms 'male freeholder'
to ' all inhabitants, ' suffrage and ability to hold the highest office
in the State were conferred both on women and negroes.

"In 1790, a committee of the Legislature rcix)rted a bill regu-
lating elections, in which the words 'he or she* are applied to
voter*}; thus giving legislative indorsement to the alleged meaning
of the Constitution.

"In 1797 the I^slature passed an act to regulate elections,
containing the following provisions: —

476 TEN years:

"Sect. 9. 'Every voter shall openly, and in full view, deliver
his or her Imllol, which shall be a single written ticket, containing
the names of the person or persons for whom he or she votes,' &c.

'Sect. 11. 'All free inhabitants of full age, who are worth fifty
jxjunds proclamation-money, and have resided within the county
in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding
the election, shall be entitled to vote for all public officers which
shall Im' elected by virtue of this act; and no person shall be en-
titled to vote in any other to^^'nship or precinct than that in
which he or she doth actually reside at the time of the election.'

"Mr. William A. Whitehead, of Newark, in a paper upon this
subject, r<\id by him in 18oS before the New-Jersey Historical
Society, states that, in this same year (1797), women voted, at an
election in Klizabethtown, for members of the l^slature. *The
can«li(lates lx«twe<'n whom the gn'atest rivalry existed were John
Condit and ^^'illiam Crane, the heads of what were known, a
year or two later, jus the "P'edenil Republican" and "Federal
.\ristorratic" parties, the former the candidate of Newark and
the northern jmrtions of the county, the latter that of Elizabeth-
town and the adjoining country, for Coimcil. Under the impres-
sion that the candidates would ik)11 nearly the same number of
votes, the Klizabethtown leatlers thought, that, by a bold coup
iVeUit, they might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late
hour of the day, and, as I have been informed, jiL^t before the
.close of the |k)11. a number of females were brought up, and, under
tiie provisions of the existing laws, allowe<l to vote. But the
manceuvre w;u> unsuccejssful; the majority for Mr. Condit in the
county being ninety-three, notwithstanding.'

"The 'Newark Sentinel,' about the same time, states that *no
less than seventy-five women were i>olled at the late election in a
neighboring borough.' In the presidential election of 1800, be-
tween Adams and Jefferson, 'females voted ver\* generally

AN APPENDIX. 477

throughout the State; and such continued to be the case until
the passage of the act (1807) excluding them from the polls. At
first, the law had been so construed as to admit single women only:
but, as the practice extended, the construction of the privilege
became broader, and was made to include females eighteen years
old, married or single, and even women of color; at a contested
election in Hunterdon County in 1802, the votes of two or three
such actually electing a member of the Legislature.

"That women voted at a very early period, we are informed by
the venerable Mr. C>tu8 Jones, of East Orange, who was bom in
1770, and is now ninety-seven years old. He says that 'old
maids, widows, and unmarried women very frequently voted,
but married women ver>' seldom;' that 'the right was recognized,
and ver>' little said or thought about it in any way.'

"In the spring of 1807, a special election w&s held in Essex
County, to decide upon the location of a court-house and jail;
Newark and its vicinity struggling to retain the county build-
ings, ElixabethtoM^'n and it« neighborhood striving to remove
them to 'Day's Hill.'

"The question excited intense interest, as the value of every
man's property was thought to be involved. Not only was every
legal voter, man or woman, white or black, brought out ; but, on
both sides, gross frauds were practiced. The property qualifica-
tion was generally disregarded; aliens, and boys and girls not of
full age, participated; and many of both sexes 'voted early, and
voted often.' In Aquackanonk Township, thought to contain
about three hundred legal voters, over eighteen hundred votes
were polled, all but seven in the interest of Newark.

"It does not appear that either vxmien or negroen were more
especially impUcated in these frauds than the white men. But
the affair caused great scandal, and they seem to have been made
the scapegoats.

478 TEN years:

"When the Legislature assembled, they set aside the elec-
tion as fraudulent; yet Newark retained the buildings. Then
they passed an act (Nov. 15, 1807). restricting the suffrage to
white male adult citizens twenty-one years of age, residents in
the coimty for the twelve months preceding, and worth fifty
pounds proclamation-money. But they went on, and provided
that all such whose names appeared on the last duplicate of
State or county taxes should be considered worth fifty pounds;
thus virtually abolishing the property quaUfication.

"In 1820, the same provisions were repeated, and maintained
until 1844, when the present State Constitution was substituted.

"Thus it appears, that, from 1776 to 1807, — a period of thirty-
one years, — the right of women and negroes to vote was ad-
miUed and exercised: then from 1807 to 1844 — ^by an arbitrary
act of the Legislature, which does not seem to have been ever
contestetl — the constitutional right was suspended, and both women
and negroes excluded from the polls for thirty-seven years more.
The extension of suffrage, in the State Constitution of 1776, to
'all inhabitants' possessing the prescribed qualifications, was
doubtless due to the Quaker influence, then strong in West Jersey,
and then, as now, in favor of the equal rights of women.

"Since 1844, under the present Constitution, suffrage is con-
ferred upon 'eyery white male citizen of the United States, of the
age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this
State one year, and of the county in which he claims a vote
five months next before the election,* excepting paupers, idiots,
insane persons, and criminals.

"This Constitution is subject to amendment by a majority
of both Houses of two successive Legislatures, when such amend-
ment is afterward ratified by the people at a special election.

"Lucy Stone.
H. B. Blackwell."

AN APPENDIX. 479*

In a recent visit to Perth Amboy, a friend directed
my attention to a figure in a broad-brimmed hat, very
much like that which used to adorn the cover of
Poor Richard's Almanac. ''That man is ninety-five
years old," said he. *'He spent his youth in prevent-
ing the New Jersey people from running their slaves^
ofif South. A prospective emancipation act had been
passed, which made the young negroes a poor invest-
ment; but our friend Parker, there, looked after them
without any fee. We think he looks like Benjamin
Franklin." The next day, I took a drive with Mr.
Parker himself, and I found he possessed another
claim on my interest. The original Constitution of
New Jersey, adopted in 1776, left women free to vote,
by leaving out the word "male." In 1790, when the
Constitution was revised, a Quaker member, ''Friend
Hooper," rose to say that among his people the women
were allowed their natural share of influence. At his
instance, the matter was made clearer by the insertion
of the words "he or she." In 1807, after an election
contested with singular virulence, these words were^
expunged, and the word "male" inserted. I had
never expected to see a member of the Legislature
who repealed this phrase; but Friend. Parker was
there, and helped do it. He assured me that the
women were not at that time anxious to retain the
privilege; but that, if they had been, the Legislature
was so irate, that the change would have taken place.
Lads, both white and colored, and under age, had
dressed in women's clothes, to swell the ballot, which

480 TEN years:

was more than double what it should have been; the
irritating question being the possible removal of
the county buildings.

A few days since, I cut from the paper the follow-
ing paragraph: —

"In the Kontucky House of Representatives, on P>iday

last, an address was received by the Speaker, from Mrs. ,

of New York, and read by the Clerk, asking the Legislature
of the Southern States to grant suffrage to white women in
the South, so as to give the Democratic party the advantage
over the negro votes, if Congress passes a general negro-

suflfrage law. By following out this plan, Mrs. thinks

the South can govern the country, as in the days of Jef-
ferson."

I suppress the name, which was printed in full, in
this paragraph, because it is the name of a woman I
respect; and I earnestly hope the whole charge is false.
If women seek to advance their own cause by mean
and meretricious tricks, — such as those which have
dishonored the policy of men, — may God for ever
disappoint their hope! I would rather be defeated
with the friends of liberty than crowned with its foes.
It is because I believe woman strong enough to TN-ith-
stand the low and loose and degrading temptations
of public life that I would lead her towards it. If
she cannot enter it as an inspiration, may she be for-
ever shut out!

Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, assisted by Lucy
Stone and Antoinette Blackwell, have been busy in
agitating all legal questions, and especially the right

AN APPENDIX. 481

of suffrage, ever since the formation of the Equal-
Rights Association in New York, in May, 1866.
Wherever there is any prospect of a convention to
change a state Constitution, it would seem wise
to agitate the matter; but here, in Massachusetts,
almost every thing has been done that should be
to protect women, except to give them the right of
suffrage. That question we are too wise to agitate,
until the country recovers somewhat from the anx-
ieties and perplexities of the war. We have no
desire to win from an unjust judge, for our impor-
tunity's sake, a right which could never be useful,
unless it were accorded with the hearty sympathy of
the best part of the community. On March 16, 1867,
a motion was made in the Massachusetts House to
instruct the Judiciary Committee to report an amend-
ment to the State Constitution, granting the right of
suffrage to women. The yeas and nays were taken,
and the motion was lost: yeas 44, nays 97.

In New York, Illinois, and Michigan, the question
is to be brought before the Constitutional Conven-
tion. Wisconsin is our banner State, both branches
of her government having concurred, April 4, 1867,
in a resolution to submit it to the people. In New
York, last year, Mrs. Stanton proposed herself as
a candidate for Congress, and received, I think, thirty
votes. It was so well understood that her election
was impossible, that her card excited neither ridi-
cule nor discussion. No one cared to turn aside
from more pressing interests to consider it. It was

35

482 TEN years:

therefore a waste of strength. I saw, with pain, that
some women did not shrink from employing last year
a politician's trick, and sent to Democratic members
of the Senate and House the petitions for the right
of suffrage for women, with which they knew them to
possess no sympathy. Had these petitions been sent
to Republican members of either House, they might
have been overlooked in the press of graver anxieties.
Mischievously sent to men like Cowan, women must
have known that the petition would be produced, if it
were only to annoy and perplex our honest friends of
the Republican party. In what would our influence
upon politics be better than that of men, if we re-
sort to such measures? During the past year, I drew
up, and forwarded to the Hon. Charles Sumner, a
petition for the right of suffrage, and afterw^ards sus-
tained it by two or three letters. I think Mr. Sumner
never brought it forward; but I gladly defer to his
judgment as to that. It was my duty to keep the
subject in mind, and see that we did not appear, even
in the tumult left by civil war, to lose sight of our
claim. I am glad to offer public thanks to the Hon.
George Thompson, who, in the meeting of the Equal-
Rights Association, held in Philadelphia on Jan. 17,
1867, defeated a resolution of thanks to Mr. Cowan,
and condemnation to Mr. Sumner, on precisely
these grounds. "To thank men like Cowan, who
did not desire to enfranchise woman any more than
the negro, was to stultify ourselves," he said. "To
condemn Sumner, because he did not think this the

AN APPENDIX. 483

time to push the claims of woman, was not honor-
able to the long-tried friend of human progress."

Abroad, such things look better. The clean hands
of John Stuart Mill — which no noble woman need
fear to touch — have presented to Parliament the
petition of fifteen hundred women for the right of
franchise. This petition is so moderate and sensible,
that it deserves to be preserved.

"The humble petition of the undersigned showeth, —

"That it having been expressly laid down by high authori-
ties, that the possession of property, in this country, carries
with it the right to vote in the election of representatives in
Parliament, it is an evident anomaly, that some holders of
property are allowed to use this right, while others, forming
no less a constituent part of the nation, and equally qualified
by law to hold property, are not able to exercise this privilege;
that the participation of women in the government is consistent
with the principles of the British Ck)nstitution, inasmuch as
women in these islands have always been held capable of sover-
eignty, and women are eligible for various public offices.

"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your honorable
House to consider the expediency of providing for the repre-
sentation of all householders, without distinction of sex, who
possess such property or rental qualification as your honorable
House may determine. And your petitioners will ever pray.

"Mrs. W. B. Carpenter, 56, Regent's Park Road, London, N.W.
CM. Clarkson, Hatfield Road, Wakefield.
Frances Power Cobbe, 26, Hereford Square, London, S.W.
Elizabeth Garrett, L.S.A.,20, Upper Berkeley Street, Lon-
don, W.
Mary Ann Gaskell, Plymouth Grove, Manchester.
Matilda M. Hayes, Great Malvern.
Mary Howitt, West Hill Lodge, Highgate, N.
M. S. KiNGLAKE, 50, Upper Brunswick Place, Brighton.
IsA Craig Knox, 14, Clyde Terrace, New Cross, S.E.

484 TEN years:

S. J. Lewin, Birkenhead.
Harriet Lupton, St. Asaph.

Elizabeth Mallison, Camp Cottage, Wimbledon.
Harriet Martineau, The Knoll, Ambleside.
Jane Martineau, 21, Tariton Street, London, W.C.
Jane Moxon, 1, Cundall's Yard, Leeds.
Mr.s. Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Huntly Lodge, Edinburgh.
Be.ssie R. Parkes, 15, \VimjK)le Street, London, W.
Elizabeth Proctor, Polam Hall, Darlington.
C. Sturch, Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, Ix)ndon, N. W.
Mr.s. Thoma.s Taylor, .Aston House, Oxfordshire.
Sarah Tnwin, Hale Ixxlge, Edgeware, Middlesex.
Anna Mary Howitt Watts, 24, Grove Terrace, Highgate
Road."

I append to the above petition a few of the fifteen
hundred names, which will serve to give it identity,
and interest in this country. We miss, among the
names, many names of the l)eloved dead; and many
would doubtless be there that we know, could it be
signed by any save property-holders.

A very powerful influence was brought to sustain
this petition in Parliament; and ampng its advocates
were James Martineau, Herbert Spencer, Professor
Huxley, and Gold\nn Smith. Mr. Mill seems to
have presented a second petition, headed by Lady
Goldschmid, and signed by three thousand persons;
and another was offered, at the same time, by Mr.
Russell Gurney. On April 11, 1867, the subject of
female suffrage was first discussed in the House
of Conmions without being greeted \Nnth a laugh.
A petition presented by Mr. Duncan Maclaren, from
Edinburgh, was signed b}- eight university professors,
six doctors of law, eighteen clergymen, eight barris-

AN APPENDIX. 485

ters, ten physicians, ten officers, and two thousand
other persons. Two women are said to have been
lately elected parish overseers: Mrs. Slocomb for
Brittadon, and Mrs. Craig for Bratton Fleming. The
step-daughter of John Stuart Mill, Miss Helen Tay-
lor, contributed to the January number of the "West-
minster" an article which worthily sustained the far
more comprehensive statement of her mother in 1851.
It would be difficult to imagine a paper, however,
that would appeal more forcibly to the English people.
There is in England a Woman-Suffrage Association,
which proposes to circulate that article as a tract.
Mrs. P. A. Taylor and Frances Power Cobbe are
among its most active members. Mrs. Bodichon has
recently brought out two pamphlets on this subject.
They contain one instance, which is not familiar, of
the inconvenience of withholding the franchise from
English women. Owners of estates seek to further
their own interest through the voting power of their
tenantry, and frequently eject women from farms, to
replace them by men who have a freehold. On one
Suffolk farm, seven women have been ejected. Among
the instances which Mrs. Bodichon adduces to show
the need of female votes are the neglect of female
education; the refusal of leases, or the ejection of old
tenants; the want of proper public spirit, which wo-
men might be expected to infuse into affairs; and the
condition of workhouses, and charitable appropria-
tions in general. In Austria, information furnished
to one of Mrs. Bodichon's papers seems to show that

486 TEN years:

the women have the same electoral rights as men,
only that in a few cases they are compelled to vote
by proxy. They vote as nobles, in their corporate
capacity as nuns, and as tax-payers or merchants;
but I need not say that there is much uncertainty in
the Austrian administration of such a law.

In connection with the name of Fredrika Bremer,
I have mentioned the great changes in Swedish law,
mainly due to her influence. An indirect right of
suffrage was further granted to women in 1862; but
in December, 1865, the Reform Bill gave the election
of members of the Upper Chamber to municipal and
county bodies. In the election of these bodies, women
take part. They must be unmarried or widows, be
twenty-five years old, and have more than four hun-
dred rixdollars per annum.

Article 15 of the Italian electoral law provides "that
the taxation paid by a widow, or by a wife separated
from her husband, shall give a vote to whichever of
her children or near relatives she may select."

A curious petition has been lately presented to the
Hungarian Diet. It is signed by a num})er of wid-
ows and other women who are landed proprietors,
and asks for them the same equality of political rights
with the male inhabitants of the country, as they pos-
sessed in 1848. These ladies represent that they have
much more difficulty in bringing up their children,
and attending to the estates, than men; that they
have to bear the same State burdens; that they are
not allowed to take part in the communal elections;

AN APPENDIX. 487

and that, although many of them possess much more
ground than the male electors, they have no political
rights.

In 1848, these women were, for the first time,
excluded from the franchise.

PROGRESS.

The real gain of a reform, starting from the heart
of the family, must necessarily be very slow. I re-
member, that some years ago, when I printed my
book on Labor, one of my kindest critics congratulated
the public, that, of my nine lectures. I had published
only these. He thought it was useless to contend for
more book-learning for women, and the subject of
civil rights still disgusted his sensitive ear. The com-
mon sense of the book on Labor ought to have shown
him how I should treat the subject of education. He
could not understand how the woman who gets an
education which does not make her a ''bread-winner,"
is essentially defrauded, nor how a woman, well paid
for her labor, is essentially wronged, when she is
denied the privilege of protecting it by her vote.
There is, however, a surely growing sense of this,
shown in the substantial advance of her civil rights.

1. In the early part of 1865, the people of Vic-
toria, in Australia, assembled to elect a member of
Parliament, were surprised to find the whole female
population voting. Some quick-sighted woman had
discovered that the letter of the new law permitted
it; and their votes were accepted, and wisely given.

488 TEN years:

The "London Times," in the month of May, says,
that, in a country like Australia, it can easily believe
that such an extension of the franchise will be a
marked improvement, and thinks that the precedent
will stand!

2. The government of Moravia has also, within the
past year, granted the municipal franchise to widows
who pay taxes.

3. In January, 1864, the Court of Queen's Bench
in Dublin, Ireland, restored to woman the old right
of voting for town commissioners. The justice (Fitz-
gerald) desired to state that ladies were entitled to
sit as town commissioners as well as to vote for
them; and the chief-justice took pains to make it
clear that there was nothing in either duty repug-
nant to womanly habits.

4. The inhabitants of Ain (or Aisne), in France,
lately chose nine women into their municipal council.

5. At Berg^res, the whole council consisted of wo-
men; and the mayor, not being prepared for such
good fortune, resigned his office.

6. Our cause has found able advocates in John Stu-
art Mill, the ''New York Evening Post," and Theo-
dore Tilton. If I were asked, whether, in connection
with this gain, we have lost any ground, I should
reply that we have decidedly lost it in connection
with the daily press. I do not know any newspaper,
if I except the ''Boston Commonwealth," which will
print a letter touching civil rights, from any woman,
precisely as it is written. I think what we need

AN APPENDIX. 489^

most is to purchase the right to a daily use of half a
column of the "New York Tribune."

RECORD AND OBITUARIES.

I have been accustomed to connect with reports of
this kind some honorable mention of distinguished
women obscure or recently dead. I cannot do this
at any length, after a pause of so many years; but
a few names must be mentioned, a few facts re-
corded.

I had occasion, some years ago, to commemorate
the services of Maria Sybilla Merian, painter, en-
graver, linguist, and traveller, who published, at Am-
sterdam, two volumes of engravings of insects and
sixty magnificent plates, illustrating the metamor-
phoses of the insects of Surinam. I did not, at that
time, know that some of her statements had been
held open to suspicion. In the first place, she as-
serted, that a certain fly, the Fulgoria Lantanaria,
emitted so much light, that she could read her books
by its aid; still further, that one of the large spiders,
called Mygale, entered the nests of the humming-bird
in Surinam, sucked its eggs, and snared the birds.
To all the contention which arose over these state-
ments, Madame Merian could oppose only her word.
Men who knew that her statements with regard to
Europe were indisputable decided that her word
could not be taken in Asia. A very common folly;
but two hundred years have passed, 1866 arrives,.
and her justification with it. An English traveller,.

490 TEN years:

named Bates, has recently rescued quite large finches
from the Mygale, and poisoned himself with its sa-
liva, in preparing them for his cabinet.

I do not know how many years Madam Baring,
the mother of the great banker, has been dead.
It is only recently that I have heard, that to her
prudence, activity, and business habits, the family
attribute the sure foundation of their fortunes. Mat-
thew Baring came to Larkbeare, near Exeter, from
Bremen. His wife superintended, in his day, the long
rows of "burlers," or women who picked over the
woollen cloth he made. Her sons, John and Fran-
cis, sought a wider field for the fortune their father
left, but did not forget to erect a monument to their
mother's industry.

About a year since, Eliza W. Farnham laid do^^'n
her weary head. I did not know her, nor did I sym-
pathize in her theories. They were sustained by her
imagination rather than her reason; by her impulses
rather than any practical judgment. No moral supe-
riority can justly be conferred on either sex of a being
possessed of intellect and conscience. God has con-
ferred no such superiority; yet I gladly name Mrs.
Farnham here as a woman whose life^a bitter dis-
appointment to herself — was useful to all women,
and whose books, published since her death, show a
marvellous mental range.

During the last year, Madame Charles Lemonnier
died in Paris. She devoted her life to the profes-
sional education of women. For six years she found

AN APPENDIX. 491

it SO difficult to raise the necessary funds, that she
had to content herself with sending her pupils to
institutions in Germany. In 1862 the Society for
the Professional Instruction of Women was at last
constituted, and opened a school in the Rue de Perle.
Two other schools have since been opened, — one in
the Rue de Val Sainte Catherine; the other, in the
Rue Roche. The morning is occupied in these schools
with general studies; the aftefcioon, with industrial
drawing, wood-«ngraving, the making-up of gar-
ments, linen, &c. She died after initiating a thor-
oughly successful work.

In July, 1865, there died at Corfu a Dr. Barry,
attached to the medical staff of the British army.
He was remarkable for skill, firmness, decision, and
great rapidity in difficult operations. He had entered
the army in 1813, and had served in all quarters of
the globe, with such distinction as to ensure promo-
tion without interest. He was clever and agreeable,
but excessively plain, weak in stature, and with a
squeaking voice which provoked ridicule. He had
an irritable temper, and answered some jesting on
the topic by calling out the offender, and shooting
him through the lungs. In 1840 he was made medi-
cal inspector, and transferred from the Cape to Malta.
He went from Malta to Corfu; and, when the Eng-
lish Government ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece,
resigned his position in the army, and remained at
Corfu. There he died last summer, forbidding, with
his latest breath, any interference with his remains.

492 , TEN years:

The women who attended him regarded this request
with the shameless indifference now so common; and
unable to believe, that an officer, who had been forty-
five years in the British service, had received a diplo-
ma, fought a duel, and been celebrated as a brilliant
operator, was not only a woman, but at some period
in her life a mother, they called in a medical commis-
sion to establish these facts. A sad, sad, picture which
those of us who inquire into the fortunes of women
Can readily understand.

Last November deprived us of Mrs. Gaskell and
Fredrika Bremer, of whom a fuller record will be
found in the body of this work.

In Paris recently died Mrs. Severn Xewton. She
was the daughter of the artist Severn, the friend of
Keats, who is now British Consul at Rome. About
five years since, she married Charles Xewton, Super-
intendent of Creek Antiquities at the British Mu-
seum. She was a person in whom power and
delicacy were singularly blended. Ary Scheffer was
accustomed to hold up her work as a model for his
pupils. Her renderings of classic sculpture were so
true that they were termed translations; and she had
recently devoted herself to oil painting with great
success. She died of brain fever at the early age
of thirty-three, one of the most honored of female
English artists.

The common sense of society accepts the need of
education for women. It begs that they may be per-
mitted to earn their bread; but let society once grant

AN APPENDIX. 493

the suffrage to women, and she will take care of her
own interests. She will found colleges, distribute
opportunities, and protect vocations.

Education must, in time, earn independence for
most women. Independence, taxed and made a citi-
zen of, will insist, in the course of years, upon its
suffrage; but whoso will help to reverse the process,
and grant suffrage, so that woman may herself indi-
cate what education she wishes to receive, and what
labor she wishes to perform, will speed the process
by scores of years.

It was pleasant to see four hundred young women,
of the highest health, the best breeding, of good social
standing, and abundant means, blossoming like so
many tulips, at Vassar, — we must add, also, of good
ability, and more than average education; for only
good scholars could pass the rigfd examination re-
quired of those who enter. It was pleasant to see,
that between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two,
when society offers its greatest allurements, four hun-
dred wealthy girls could be found, ready to devote
themselves in seclusion, and without even the stimu-
lus existing at Oberlin or Antioch, to higher things.
And then, if the want of public sympathy makes it
a painful work to be always pushing the interests of
women, such teachers and officers as one finds at
Vassar compensate one for any amount of struggle.
Miss Hannah Lyman, who is now the principal; Miss
Mitchell, the astronomer; Dr. Avery, the resident
physician; and Miss Powell, the professor of gym-

494 TEN years:

nasties, — it is only necessary to name to Eastern
ears: but, besides these women, Vassar employs
twenty others, in whom it would be hard to find a
fault, and some of whom, we were glad to see, had
taken their degree at Oberlin. Going westward to
Antioch, it was pleasant to find other women who had
taken their degrees, and were now teaching Greek
and Latin. One of the graduates, employed as a
teacher of mathematics, had won her ov\ti education
in the college by teaching one year, — sometimes in
distant district-schools, — and studying the next. At
Oberlin, the picture was still more inspiring: for Ober-
lin has, I suppose, more pupils than any college in the
land, if we except Michigan University; and one-half
of them are girls and women. The practical working
of this college is beautiful to see. It has been fortu-
nate in the magnificent faith communicated to it by
Dr. Finney. Most of the women who were its early
students, and stamped its character, so that no scandal
dared invade its borders, are now the wives of its
professors, and many of them are still engaged in
teaching. Mrs, Dascomb, who is the wife of the pro-
fessor of chemistry, has been ^^^th the college from the
beginning: she is as fine a person for her position, as
lady-principal, as Miss L>Tnan; yet how differently
have the two been trained ! Mrs. Dascomb, by isola-
tion, persecution, contact with the rudest elements in
Western life, yet keeping, through all, a noble faith
in manhood and womanhood; Miss Lyman, starting
from the most distinguished social circle in Northamp-

AN APPENDIX. 495

ton, holding a high place among what Dr. Holmes
would call the "Brahmins" of Montreal, and finally-
polished by a European tour, ahd holding control
with a power as imperceptible as it is firm. At
Milwaukee, beside Dr. Ross, to whose ten years of
successful practice I have alluded, I found another
physician, in happy partnership with one of the broth-
ers of the craft, a Dr. Glass. He has lately moved
from Minnesota to Wisconsin, where he has been
several years in partnership with Miss Fairchild, and
testifies that he has never seen her superior as a prac-
tical physician. Here, also, a young lady, of one of
the best families, has lately opened a hair-dresser's
store. Dr. Ross gives her sweet sympathy and cheer;
but, as a proof that the world still needs converting,
she has had a good deal of that insolence to subdue
which pains just as much as if it were worth minding.
An3rthing like the number of female lecturers which
I heard of in Illinois, I had never imagined. The
medical women are readily accepted in most places,
even without proper vouchers; and it is astonishing,
how far common sense contrives to supply the place
of education. But the want of vouchers is a serious
evil, which must soon be met. In Chicago I heard
wonderful stories of the business capacity of certain
women. One lady, very well known on Michigan
Avenue, brought one hundred thousand dollars' worth
of Chicago city bonds to Boston and New York, and
safely sold them for her husband. A farmer's wife,
from the centre of the State, came up, while I was

496 TEN years:

there, to speculate in corn. 8he said her husband
had lost money several yeaTs in succession, and now
she was going to try. By her first speculation, she
made five thousand dollars; and this she put into
competent hands, for re-investment. It gained her
twenty thousand dollars. The Chicago merchants
thought that she would go on speculating until she
lost it all; hut I do not. I think our Pleasant -street
Hospital has j)rovod that women are more cautious
than men, and are willing to bear a good deal of
obloquy rather than permit rash v^entures to be made.

In the country, everywhere, I heard charming anec-
dotes of the vigor and self-sacrifice women showed in
the early settlement of the States.

It happened one spring, that, when the ice broke up
on the Fox River, a terrible storm of wind and sleet
and rain came with it. Not a man in the State, how-
ever great the emergency, would have thought that he
could cross. In this state of things, a woman was
taken in childbirth, .some two or three miles from the
ferry. Just as the ferry-woman was going to bed, in
the "outer darkness" of that terrible .storm, she heard
her name shouted from the opposite bank. She lis-
tened, and a grievous story was shouted across. She
went to the stable and saddled her mare, and, all alone,
forded the stream: the floating ice, heaped into walls,
struck the sides of the faithful beast, and tore the
woman's skirt to tatters. Now and then a flash of
lightning showed her what progress she had made.
At last, she struggled to the bank, and gave the need-

AN APPENDIX. 497

fill help. Nobody ever asked how she got back. On
the grass about Elgin, a whole ship's load died of
cholera, nearly forty years ago. All the neighborhood
stood back in dread; but I saw one aged woman, who
closed the eyes of nine and received the foreign bless-
ing, which she felt, although she could not understand.
In Quincy, I found two ladies just establishing a high
school for girls, whom I have previously mentioned as
having pushed through the endowment, for women,
of the State University at Lawrence, and having
opened a class in modelling in clay, under Professor
Volkers. At the Cooper Institute I found more
women at work than ever before, and to better advan-
tage. A large class had just been formed to color
photographs on glass, porcelain, and paper. Under
such circumstances, we need not be disheartened
because an ignorant woman, in a man's costume, has
found the way to attract some attention in Europe
and some contempt from Tom Hughes. Neither need
it dismay us that the ** Boston Advertiser" thinks
the Equal-Rights meetings, in New York, have not
been largely attended. There are those who want
the suffrage, who do not care to encourage women to
offer themselves for Congress before public opinion
can accept them, and who are sufficiently disgusted
by what looks like a mannish coalition with Demo-
crats, to keep away from public meetings.

Meanwhile, the women of Parma clamor for the
right to vote for Victor Emanuel. A freedwoman,
Charlotte Scott, proposes a monument, on behalf of

80

498 TEN years:

her emancipated race, to President Lincoln; and the
noble inspiration of Harriet Hosmer carries out the
thought.

But the very things we turn from force the neces-
sary issues on the world. Wise action would never
have brought the recent debate in Congress; nor pru-
dent measures have secured thirty votes for Mrs.
Stanton, and nine senatorial ballots for female suf-
frage. Once agitated in these quarters, the matter
draws nearer to a final test.

*' Ride on! the prize is near."

L'ENVOI.

My Song, I do believe that there are few
Who will thy reasoning rightly understand,
To them so hard and dark is thy discourse.
Hence, peradventure, if it come to pass
That thou shouldst find thyself with persons who
Appear unskilled to comprehend thee well,
I pray thee, then, my young and well-beloved,
Be not discomforted; but say to them,
"Take note, at least, how beautiful I ami"

Dante, from the "Banquet."

Art thou not beautiful, my new-bom Song?
Then thou art piteous, and shalt go thy way.

Rime Apocnfe,[G. G.

INDEX

INDEX.

Abbesseh in England, 334. 335.
Adams. John, on his wife. 28. 29.
Adams. Mrs. John, 41; quoted, 358.
Adams, John Quincy, quoted. 29. 30.
African customs with regard to wo-
men. 75. 76.
Agriculture, women employed in,

160. 161. 172. 188. 450. 451.
Aikin, John, M.D., and his sister, 78.
Ain or Aisne, France, women in the

council of, 488.
Albee, Mrs. Harriet Ryan, 229, 245.
Alexander. William. M.D., quoted.

66. 78. 79.
Alfred, student, extract from, xviii.
Allen. Pres. A. A., sketch by. xvii;.
American Nautical Almanac, wo-
men employed on the, 202.
Anne, queen of Richard II., 157 n.
Antagonistic tone of the author de-
fended, 184 n.
Anthony, Miss S. B., 480.
Antioch College, 381-383. 392-105,

494.
"Antislavery Standard," quoted,

185n.
Antonini, Jeanne Louise, the sailor

and soldier, 163.
Arabs reject male physicians, 431.
Aristophanes on women, 52, 64-56.
Arnott scholarship, 426.
Art-achools, 447-449.
Ashfield, ladies on the School Com*

mittee of, 205.
Ashley, Lord, quoted, 169.
Aspasia. the true history of, 63-65.
Association for the Advancement of

Social Science, 336. 337.
Associations for the Promotion of

Social Science, 379.
Astell, Mary, her attempted college

'' - women, 369.

1119, matrons in, 190, 232, 233.

: >ts. xli.
Auntiii, John, his "Province of Juri»*

prudence," edited by Mrs. Austin.

xlvii; quoted. 265.
Australia, female laborers of, 159;

female suffrage in, 487, 488; an

Australian custom, 369.
Austria, female suffrage in, 485, 486.
Avery, Alida, resident physician at

Vassar College, 410, 413. 493.

Baker, Mrs. Betsey, 157 n.

Baker University. 380.

Ballard. Matilda, gains the Arnott

scholarship. 426.
Bank directors, female, 472, 473.
Barbauld, Mrs. A. L. A., her essays

praised by Fox, 78.
Barbers, female, 229.
Baring, Mrs. Matthew, 490.
Barney, Eliza, quoted, 197, 198.
Barry. Mrs. Dr.. 491, 492.
Basle, deaconess house at, 428.
Bodout, Madame de, 471.
Bennett, Mr., and watchmaking in

England, 180, 181.
Bent, Ann, 200.201.
Bentham, Jeremy, 290.
Berg. Mansell, teaches the Laps,

435.
Berg^res, France, women in the

council, 488.
Berkeley, Lady Anne, 292.
Bertha the spmner, 160, 161.
Bex. Madame, inventor, 156 n.
Bigelow, Jacob M.D., quoted, 82 n.
Bih6ron. Mademoiselle M. C, 128;

inventor, \hT^ n.
Bird, Clementina, printer, 199.
Birmingham, manufactories of, 192.
Blackstone, Sir William Kt., on a

husband's rights, 307.
Blackwell, Antoinette. 480; Quoted,

474-478.
Blackwell, Elizabeth, engraver, 193.
Blackwell, Elizabeth, M.D., 429,

432.
"Blackwood's Magazine," quoted,

333, 334.
Blood, Frances, friend of Mary WoU-

stonecraft, 88.
Blooming-Grove Church, N.Y., ruled

by deacons and deaconesses, 399,

440.
Bodichon, Mrs. B. L., 338; quoted,

37 «09-, 485; author's obligations

to, xliii; her "Brief Summary of

the English Law" referred to, 289;

quoted, 296 aqq.; her "Woman

and Work" quoted, 24. 485.
Boivin. Madame, inventor, 155 n.
Bologna, women of, 129.
Bombay, female laborers in the

ghauts of, 158.

|503|

504

INDEX.

Bonheur. Roea, 226. 320, 361. 448;
quoted, 276; directress of the Ecole
Imp&riale de Dessein, 449.

Books, woman's share in the manu-
facture of, 193.

Booth, Mary L. 226 n.

Booth, Mrs., preaches, 436.

Boston, the perishing class in, xxzix;
women in business in, 199-201;
need of a training-school for ser-
vants in, 238-240: of a laundry.
240; of a ready-made clothing
store, 241-243; of a knittin{( fac-
tory, 244, 245; of an intelligence
office, 251-258; Association for the
Promotion of Social Science, 379;
medical education in. 429, 430;
art schools in, 447.

"Boston Advertiser," 497.

"Boston Commonwealth," 488.

"Boston News Letter," printed by a
woman, 199.

Bowditch, Nathaniel, and his wife,
327.

Bowring, Sir John, on the marriage
ser\'ice, 77.

Braum, Am^lie von, preacher, 434.

Bremer. Fredrika, 108-110, 486, 492.

Breton, Madame, inventor, 155 n.

Brewster, Anna, quoted, 342.

Brickmaking, women engaged in,
451.

Bront6, Charlotte, "Jane Eyre," 112-
115; other novels, 114.

Brougham, Henry, Lord, 338; quo-
ted, 82 n.

Brown, Rev. Olympia. 435, 436.

Brown, Mrs. Susannah, physician,
226 n.

Browne, John W., lii.

Browning, Mrs. E. B., Ill, 112, 338;
quoted, 2, 111, 112, 178, 265; her
"Aurora Leigh," 43, 111.

Browning, Robert, 110, 111.

Brulow, widow, the soldier, 163.
164.

Brushmakers, women as. 195.

Buckle, T. H., 134, 339; quoted, 57;
on moral eflfort, 250, 251.

Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, opposes a
college for women, 369.

Button-factory at Easthampton, 459,
460.

Buttons, manufacture of. 192.

Byfield, Mary, wood-engraver, 193.

Byron, Lord, 58.

Calcutta, female masons in, 158.

Miss Carpenter's schools in, 427.
Calico-mills, 170.
Canada, laws of, in regard to women,

283, 339-341.
Cards, manufacture of, 193.
Caribs, customs of, 171. 172.

Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 126, 133.
221.

Caroline, Queen, trial of, 325.

Carpenter. Mary, 370, 427.

Cars ing. wood, 227-229.

"Censor, The," 199.

Channing. William £., 201; quoted
87.

Chapin. Caroline. 417. 418.

Chapin. Edwin H., D.D., quoted.
142.

Chapin, Mary, quoted, 414-418.

Charles IL, society in the time of, 66.

Chicago, female speculators of, 495.

Chinese treatment of wives, 269.

Chisholm, Caroline, 370.

Cholera at Elgin, 497.

Christian, Edward, quoted, 307.

Clark, Mrs., quells a mutiny, 174.

Clark. Professor John E., 399, 400.

Clarke. Madame, 460, 461.

Clarke, Freeman, decides that wo-
men cannot be bank directors,
472.

Clarke, Mrs. Mary A. T., her in-
trigues. 325,-326.

Clasacal study, 51-60.

Clerk of the Crown in the Court of
Queen's Bench, the office of, held
by a woman, 291.

Clerks, female. 187, 191. 197, 202,
363. 457.

Clint, Elisabeth and Mar>-, wood-
engravers. 193.

Clothing, ready-made. 241-244.

Coal-mines, women working in, 168,
169. , _,

Coast Survey, women employed on
the, 202.

Cobbett. William, quoted. 167.

Cochin-China, women of. 158.

Code Napoleon, 277-286.

Ccelebes Island, laws and customs of,
269.

CoUeges, 380-418, 493, 494; should
be under female super\-ision, 7 n.

Comfort, committee of, 236 n.

Condorcet, M. J. A. N. Caritat, Mar-
quis de, 277.

Confessors, usefulness of, 235 n.

Connecticut Blue-laws, 1. 267; female
suffrage in. 257; marriage law. 348.
352.

Cooper Institute, 447; class to color
photographs at, 497.

Corbin. Mrs. C. F.. quoted, 150 n.

Corbin, Hannah, 358.

Cossacks' prejudice against male
physicians. 431.

Cotton, manufacture of, 165.

Cousin. Victor, quoted. 19.

Coventry, the first steam-factory m.
182

Craig, Austin, D. D.. 399.

INDEX.

505

Craig, Mias, quoted, 140.

Craik. Mr«. D. M. Muloch, her

"Thoughta about Women." 123-

125.
Cram, Rev. Mrs. Nancy G.. 437.
Cranch, Judge William, hb respect

for women, 21.
Crawford, Thomas G., his Beethoven,

220.
Cruelty as a cause of divorce, 347.
Curtis, Martha B., plants the first

poutoes in New England, 200.

Damks de la Halle, Les, 332.

Dftnie Aligheii. quoted, 499.

Dftriing. Grace, 189.

SMOomb, Mrs. Marianne P.. princi-
pal of OberUn College, 494.

Davis, James, quoted, 314, 317.

Day, Thomas. 101; quoted. 69.

Deaconew. 427-429, 440.

Death or dishonor, xxxiz. 133-177.

Deooudray, Madame, inventor, 155 n.

Demars. Clara, quoted. 276.

Dentists, female, 205.

Dignhen van den Plasse, Madame,
157 n.

Disraeli, Benjamin, quoted, 168.

Divorce, 297-299. 306, 338, 339, 346,
347

Dix. Dorothea L.. 232.

Dixon. Hepworth. quoted. 290.

Doderidge. Sir John, author of
"Lawe's Resolution." 289, 290.

Domestic duties not to be neglected,
128, 129.

Dora d'Istria, 427.

Draper, Margaret, printer, 199.

Dress, love of. the cause of prostitu-
tion, xl.

DrsMmakers. 140. 141.

Druggists, female. 198.

Druses. "Literature fit only for wo-
men," 21.

Dryden, John, "No sex in souls,"
287.

Dry-goods stores kept by women,
19/ 198, 201.

DuchAtelet.— See Parent-DuehdieUt.

Dutillet, Madame, inventor, 166n.

EDorwoRTH, Maria, 101.

"Eklinburgh Review." xliv; quoted,
140, 182, 187. 222.

"Edinburgh Weekly Journal," quo-
ted, 334 n.

Editors, female, 184, 338.

EducaUon of women, 1-130; a ne-
cessary experiment, 6. 7; present
standard of, 18; every faculty
should be cultivated. 126.

Elocution, female teachers of, 222-224.

Emerson. Ralph Waldo, on Marga-
ret Fuller, 119-121.

Employers, women's relations to,
136 sqq., 186.

Employments of women in England,
188-195; in the United States,
19fr-207.

England, education of women in,
20-23; female suffrage in, 483-
485; laws respecting women in.
287-341; number of and clasdfica-
tion of female workers in, 188-195;
sale of wives in, 166, 167.

English literature, woman in, 84, 85.

"Englishwoman's Journal," xliii; edi-
tors of, 338.

Engraving, 193. 227-229.

Euripides on women. 53. 54.

"Evening Post," quoted, 465.

Executor, prefatory note, iii.

Fairchild, James H., President of
OberUn College, 386, 389, 391.

Fairchild, Miss, physician, 495.

Fajardo, Madame Maria, pharma-
cienne, 185 n.

Family, the, 366-368.

Farmers' wives sewing for money,
the evil of, 139. 454.

Famham, Mrs. Eliza W., 490.

Fashionable people, xlii.

Fauveau, F6licie de, sculptor, sketch
of, xliii, 215-220.

Ferguson, Adam, quoted, 376.

Finney, Charles G., President of
Oeberlin College. 384-391.

Fisheries, women employed, in 189.

Flavors. 133.

Flowers, artificial. 195.

Fordyce, James, D.D., quoted, 69.

Formosa Isles, customs of, with re-
gard to women, 74, 75.

Fox, Charles J., and Dr. Aiken, 78.

Fox River, 496.

France, laws relating to women in,
274-286.

Franklin, Mrs. Anne, and her daugh-
ters, printers. 198. 199.

Freemantle. , quoted, 325.

Fruit, preserving and candying, 230,
231.

Fuller, Margaret. — See 0«8oli.

Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 334, 335.

Fuseli, originally Fuessli, J. H., and
Mary Wollstonecraft, 91, 92.

"Galionani," quoted, 162.
Gannett. Ezra S., D.D., 201.
Garratt, Thomas. 474.
Garrett, Elizabeth, physician, 27 n.,

28 n.. 483.
Garrows. laws and customs of the,

269, 270.
Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabeth C. S.. 338,

492; her "Life of C. Bronte," 107.

108; quoted, 198.

506

INDEX.

Cay, D6sir6e, 277.

Geneva, 428.

Oermany, education of women in

1740, 19; condition of women in

1865.471.
Ghauts of Bombay, female laborers

in the, 158.
Giles. Xclly, at the Battle of the

Nile, IM.
Glarus, marriage laws of, 315.
Glass, ^— . M.D., 49.5.
Godwin. Mrs. Mar\- Woolstonecraft,

290, 369; her "Vindication of the

Rights of Woman," 83-87; sketch

of her hfe, 87-95; defence of, 96-

101.
Godwin, William, 95; 43, 96,
Gold chain, manufacture of, 192.
Gooch, Robert. M.D.. 23.
Governesses, 145.
Graham. Judge, 353, 354.
Grand Chamberlain, two women

filled the office of, 291.
CJreene. Cordelia \., 4-33.
Gregory, John, M.I)., 68, 69.
Griffith, .Mrs., marine botanist, 42,

370.
Grocers, female, 197, 198, 200.
Gunning, 458.

CJurdon, Thomhagh, quoted, 334.
Gurnev, Anna, sketch of, 170, 171.
Ctuy, John, founds a hospital. 405.
Gymnastics, female teachers of. 232,

493.

H.\r.GO, William. 200.

Hairdresst'rs, female, 457, 495.

Ilalliclay, Mr., quoted, 4«W.

Happiness, woman created not only
for, 126.

Harri.-* r. Butler. 323.

Harvard College, 4.30.

Hart. J. .S.. .Manual Am. Literature,
xiii.

Hastings. Manjuesw of, quoted, 269.

Haven, Samuel F., author's obliga-
tions to, li.

Hayes, Matilda .M., 338, 483.

Hedge, F. W., D.D., quoted. 117.

Hedges, Mrs., a preacher, 437, 439.

Heidenreich, Frau, .M. T. C, nfe Hei-
land (see Preface), physician, 225
«..226n.

Kekekyan Effcndi, quoted. 33-35.

Helps, .Arthur, quoted, 235.

Hencourt, Madame Jenny P. de, her
'•Femme Aflfranchie," xlix.

Herndon, William H., author's obli-
gations to, li; quoted, 3.")0, 351.

Hii^inson, Thomas W.. author's ob-
bgations to, xliii, li; quoted. 18,
292, 335; states that two women
have been Grand Chamberlains,
291.

Hilda, the Abbess, 334.

Hill, Charlotte, violinist, 458.

Hill. OcUvia, her lodging-houses,

467.
Hillman, Mrs. Mehitable H., grocer,

200.
Hinde, Mary, printer, 194.
Holliday. Alice, in Eg>pt, 32-37.
"Home Visitor," 184.
Homer, quoted, 15.
Hooker. Richard, quoted, 265.
Horse-breaker, female, 162.
Hosmer, George W., D.D., at An-

tioch College, 382. 394, 397-399.
Hosmer, Harriet G., sculptor, 361,

498.
Hosmer, Professor James K., 399.
Hours of female work, 141, 168-170,

455.
Housewives, college for, 413.
Howard University, 380.
Howitt, Marj", 338, 483.
Hughes, Thomas, 497.
Hungary, marriage law in, 309, 310;
suffrage in, 486, 487.
; Hunt. Harriot K., M.D.. her protests,
I 364, 473.

I Hunter, William. M.D.. 135 n.
i Husbands, duties of. .365-368; rights

of, 307, 368.
I "Hypatia." vindication of, 62, 63.

Idueness, curse of. 179.
I Illinois, Diarriaicc law in, 346, 349-
i 351; suffrage in, 481; female lec-
I turers and physicians in, 495.
, Imlay, (ullHTt, his connection with
! Mary Wollstonecraft, 92-95.

Impurity of mind and language,
1 80-82, 125.

I Inchbald, Mrs. Elixabcth. 95, 97.
i Indian squaws, North-American 172.
j Industrial schools, 238-251.

Ingersoll, Charles A., li.

Insanity, 178: insanity and mar-
j riage. 297.

Inspectors of women's work should
be women, 186, 224.

Intelligence offices, 251-259.

Inventors, female. 155 n., 156 n.
! Ireland, right to vote for town com-
missioners in, 4S8.

Isabelle, Madame, horse-breaker, 162.

Ishocmachus, 53.

Italy, education of women in, 23;
female suffrage in, 486.

Jackson, Fanny, 389, 390.
Jackson, Francis, his will, 471.
Jails, matrons in. 190, 232, 233.
Jameson, Mrs. Anna M., zlii. 104,

105, 338, 370; quoted, 22. 24. 105-

107.
Jenkins, Rev. T.ydia A., 436.

INDEX.

507

Jobson, Mr., offers to teach women

dentistry, 205.
Johnaon, Anna, quoted, 161.
Johnson, Letitia, and sister, their

crockery shop, 200.
Johnaon, Miss, at the Normal School.

Framingham, 17, 18.
Johnson, .Samuel, LL.D., quot^, 317.
Juries, women on, 330.
Justinian, 273.

Kaiserwerth, 23, 427.
Kansas, female suffrage in, 357, 473.
Kapnist. Mr., quoted, 10.
Kauffmann, Angelica, an engraver,

193
Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, 223.
Kent, James, chancellor, quoted, 343.
Kentucky, female suffrage in, 357.

480.
Kerfoot. Bishop, 429.
King, Mrs. Eliiabeth, physician,

226 n.
Kingflley, Charles, his "Hypatia,"

62.
Kirkland, Mrs. Caroline M. S.. 130,

*;^uoted, 76.
Knitting factory in Boston suggested,

244. 245.
KnitlinK of Welsh farmers, 9.
Kohl, Johann G., quoted 161, 269.
Kolti off-.Massalsky. H.Ghika, Prin-
cess, 427.
KrOdner, Madame Julie de Wie-

tinghoff. Baroness de. 446, 447.
Kwei Chunk Fu, quoted. 221.

Labob, disgust at, xl; woman's need

to labor, 179; female labor exchange.

253-259.
I4w:emakera, 141.
Lamb. Charles, on Letitia Landon,

21,22.
Lamourous, Marie de, 277; foun-
dress of the House of Mercy at

Bordeaux, 155 n.
Language, women should be the

teachers of, 222-224.
Laundry, plan of a public, in Boston,

240, 241.
Law, 263-374; English Common.

287-341; French, 274-286; United

States, 342-374.
Law-.\mendment Society, 339.
"I^we's Resolution of the Rights of

Women," xxi; quoted, 288; its

author, 2S9, 290.
Lawrence University, 414-418.
Lawyers, female, 330-469.
I^ecturers, female in Illinois, 495.
I.«cture8 to women, 10.
Lee, Richard H., quoted, 369.
Legouve, Ernest, quoted, 155, 224,

281, 293-296.

Leipsic women's convention at, in

1865,471.
Lemonnier, Madame Charles, her

schools for women, 490, 491.
Lester, Mrs. Lucretia, physician,

226 n.
Lille, Lady Alice, pleads her own

cause, 335.
"Lily, The," 184.
Lisbon, medico-chirurgical school of,

185 n.
Literary men and women, their duty

to invigorate public opinion, 45.
Lithography, 228, 229.
Liverpool, training-school for nurses

at, 418-426; Liverpool ware, 194.
Livingstone. David, quoted. 75, 76.
Lodging-houses, 463^67.
Lombard University, 381.
London. Queen's College, 426; Work-
ing-women's College, 427; Society

for the Rescue of Yoimg Women,

151; "The Times," 337; quoted,

488.
Loring. Charles G., 430.
Louis XIV., society in the time of,

66.
Louisiana, law of, regarding women,

283-285.
I>ove. dying for, 125, 126.
I^well, Charles, 233.
Lowell Institute, 8, 379, 447.
Luce, Madame, in Algiers, 37.
Lyman, Hannah, 410-412. 493-495.
Lynn, Mass., shoemaking in, 207.

Macaulay, Catharine, 290.

McConnell. Rev. Mr., of Yellow
Springs, 398, 401.

Machinery, female makers of, 174,
17.5.

Magill, Mr. of the Boston Latin
School, 418.

Mahomet, quoted, 373.

Mahratta amazon, 270.

Maine, H. S., quoted, 295.

Maine marriage laws, 349, 353.

Man's duties, 365-368.

Manufacturies, opposition to female
labor in. 180-184.

Marble, artificial, 156 n.

Marian, the Bible woman, 236-238.

Marie Antoinette, 277.

Marriage laws, 271-318, 338, 339,
343-355, 469-471; mock marriage
dissolved over a tombstone, 334.

Married Woman's Property Act of
1867, 338; of 1858. in Canada.
339.

Marshall, Mrs., inventor, 156 n.

Martineau, Harriet, 42, 43, 101, 104,
338, 370, 484; quoted, 104; Mar-
garet Fuller's criticism on, 118,
119.

508

INDEX.

Ma88aobusett« marriage laws, 346-

349, 353, 3M, 4»-.9; Buffrage in, 481;

Technologiral Institute, 379.
Matos. Madame Caroline de, pbar-

maoienne, 185 n.
Matrons in as>-lum8, jails, etc., 190,

232, 233.
Mayhew, Henry, 145; quoted, 14ft-

148.
Medical schools, 24-27. 429-434.
Mendelssohn Rartholdy , Felix, quoted,

377.
Mending-school. 466.
Merchants, female. 197-201.
Merian. Maria S., entomologist and

engraver, her accuracy indicated,

489.
Mirhelet, Jules, 276. 277.
Michigan, divorce in, 346; sufTrase

in. 481: University of, 45. 414,

418.
Mill. John S.. 290. 488; present* to

Parliament a petition for female

suflrage. 48,3; »|uote<l. 326-329.
Mill. Mrs. John S.. 276; quoted. 337;

eulogj- upon, by her husband. 327-

329.
Milton, John, quoted. 2.
Mining, women entployfti in. 189.
Missouri, marriage law in, 349, 470;

suffrage in, 473.
Mitchell. .Maria. 202. 407. 409-412;

493; quote<l. 44.
Moniot, Madame, claims civil rights.

277, .333.
Mops. 232.

Moral effort. Buckle on. 250, 251.
^Iorandi, Madame, inventor, 155 n.
Moratft. Olympia. 129.
>Ioravia. female suffrage in, 488.
Morgan, Sir Charles, the maiden

aunt of, 302, 303.
Morgan. Sydney O.. Lady, sketch

of, 101-104: quoted, 67, 68. 103.
Morion, Helen, physician, 430.
Mott, Lucretia, female orator, 210,

446.
Mozioni, .\nna M., authoress, 23.
Moulton, Women of the Centun,-, xiv.
Muloch. Dinah M. — .See Craik.
Murray. Mrs. Elizabeth, letter from,

448. 449.
Musicians, female. 458.
Mygale, the. 489. 490.

Nantucket women in business.

197-199.
"National Intelligencer." quoted. 359.
Neatness. 128. 129.
Nebraska, female suffrage in, 357.
Necker. Jacques, his tribute to his

wife. 327.
Nesbit. Charlotte, woo<l-engraver,

193.

New-Hampshire marriage law, 348,

353.
New Jersey, female suffrage in, 356,

357, 474-480.
Newspapers, bad influence of, 79-81.
Newton, Mrs. Severn, artist, 492.
New York City, prostitution in, 142i

143.
"New York Evening Post," 488.
New York State, female suffrage

in, 481; law respecting married

women's evidence, 469; marriage

Uw of, 346, 348. 354-356.
"New York Tribune," 489; quoted,

354,356.
Nichols, Mrs. , sails the ship ' 'Grotto,"

173, 174.
Niebuhr, B. G., quoted, 18, 19, 46.
Nightingale. Florence. 23. 106 n.,

122. 123. 233. .337, 370.
Normal School, Boston. 10.
Norton, Hon. Sirs. Caroline E. S. S.,

and her husband. 308. 309.
Notar>' public. Miss Stebbina ap-
pointed a. 469.
Novels, influence of. 50. 51.
Nurses. 29 n.. 122; training-school

for, at Liverpool, 418-426.

Oberun College. 381-392.

Ohio marriage law. 349. 353.

Orator, female. 210.

Oratory, female teachers of, 222-224.

Oread Institute. 43.

Orton. Fkiward. 400.

Ossoli, S. M. Fuller, Marchicmess d',

112. 115-121. 370: quoted, 56, 57,

70,81, 116-119.210.
Otaheite. Queen of, her physcial

strength. 74.
Ovid, indelicacy of, 58.
Oxford, ladies' classes at, 426.

Packingtox. I-ady, 292, 335.
Paine. Fanny. 457. 458.
Palmer. Mrs. a refugee. 403-405.
Parent-DuchAtelet. Alexandre J. B.,

quoted. 140. 151. 294.
Paris, prostitution in. 140. 151, 294.
Parish clerk, a female, 291.
Parker, a Friend, 479.
Parker, Theodore, quoted. 172, 367.
Parkes, Bessie R., 338. 484; author's

obligations to. xliii.
Parkman. Francis. D.D., 446.
Parma, women of. 497.
Passevant, Rev. Mr., 428.
Pastors, 233-236.
Patmore. Coventrj', his "Betrothal,"

etc.. 22. 277.
Patton, John, li.

Patton. Mrs. Mar>-. 47, 48. 123. 173.
Paula. Santa. 122. 123.
Peck. Mrs., physician. 226 n.

CONTENTS.

509

Pembroke, Countess of, sheriff, 292.
Peaoaylvania, 354; high schools in,

429; widows' property law in, 472;

Medical Society, 185 n.
Pens, manufacture of, 192.
Perfumes, 133.

Periahing clasaes, xxxix, 134 »qq.
Peru, customs with regard to women

in, 74. 75.
Peters, Madame Louise O., at the

Leipdc Convention, 471.
"Philadelphia Daily Register," 183,

184.
Philadelphia Mercantile Library, 474.
* ' Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch, ' '

quoted, 185 n.
PluIUps, WendeU. quoted, 362. 374.
Physicians, female, 27, 28. 182. 225.

226, 364. 410-413, 429-434, 462,

473-478. 480. 491-193, 495.
Picklea. manufacture of, 231.
Pinmakers. female. 170.
Pitcaim's Island, ifemale suffrage in,

341.
Plater. Countess Emily. 210.
Pleasant-street Hospital, Boston,

496.
Postmistresses, 291.
Powell, Miss Elisabeth, professor of

gymnastics at Vassar College, 493.
Poynter, Thomas, quoted. 316, 347.
Preachers, female, 434-447.
Printers, female, 194, 198, 199, 467-

469; opposition to, 183. 184, 450.
Printers Convention at Springfield.

199.
Prisons, matrons in, 190, 232. 233.
Prostitution, xzxix-xiii, 134 aqq., 235

n: statistics of. 140-145. 294.
Proverbs, 49, 270, 271.
Public opinion. 46-130.
Putnam, .\. P., Songs and Singers, etc.,

"QuARTEKLT REVIEW," quoted. clrii,

269.339.
Quincy. 111., high school for girls,

497.

Rachel, the actress, 223.

Ri6camier, Madame Jeanne A. J.
F. B.. 277.

Redpath. Jas.. C. H. Dall, v.

Reid, Mrs. Hugo, author's obliga-
tions to, xlix; quoted, 312, 318.

Register of deeds, female, 206.

Republicanism, objections to. 4. 5.

Restaurant, stiggestion of a cheap,
in Boston, 239 n., 240 ».

Reugger, Mademoiselle, physician,
431, 432.

"Revue des Deux Mondes," quoted.
286.

Rexford, Ann, a preacher, 436.

Rhode laland marriage laws, 348,

349, 351.
Rimmer, Dr. William, 447.
Rio Janeiro, Convent of Nuestra

Senhora da Ajuda, 269.
Ripley College, 380.
Riso, Ignacia, 164, 165.
Roberta, Rev. Abigail H., 437, 438.
Rogers. Miss, 32. 33. 39.
Roland, Madame Marie J. P., 277.
Roland, Pauline, claims civil rights,

277, 333.
Roman law, the, respecting women,

272 sqq.
Rondet, Madame, inventor. 156 n.
Rose. Olive, register of deeds, 206.
Ross. , female physician, 433,

495.
Rossi. Properzia de'. wood-carver,

227 228
Rous,' Lady, sheriff. 292.
Rousseau, Jean J., quoted, 68.
Ruskin, John, 435; his lodging-
houses, 467; quoted, xlviii, 127, 128.

342.

Russell, , quoted, 330.

Russell, Penelope, printer, 199.
Ryan. Harriet. — See Albee, Mrs.

Sabl£, Madame Madeleine de Sou-
vr^. Marquise de, 19, 41.

Sailors, female, 47, 173, 174.

St. John, James Augustus, quoted,
55.

St. Lawrence University, 380.

St. Loup, 428.

Sand, Ueorge, (Madame Dudevant),
276.

Sanger, William W., his book criti-
cised, xl; quoted, 144.

School cohimittees, women on, 205,
470^

Schoof of Design at Marlborough
House, opposition to female pupiu,
23, 182.

School of Design in New York, 227,

School for the professional instruc-
tion of women, 490, 491.

Schools in charge of women, 17.

Schools of design, 184, 203.

Scofield, Sarah Ann, sketch of, 174,
175.

Scott, Charlotte, freedwoman, pro-
poses a monument to Lincoln, 497,
498.

Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 334 n.

Sculptors, female, 361, 492, 498.

Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 130.

Seduction has no legal remedy, 323,
324.

Servants, training-sch9ol for, 238-240.

Sewall, Lucy E., physician, 430.

Sewall, Samuel E., 348, 469; revises
the present work, li.

510

INDEX.

Sewing, 139; should be taught to

both sexes, 8, 9.
Shakespeare, quoted. 264. 287, 374.
Shedden, Miss, lawyer, 330, 469.
Sheriflfs, female, 292.
Shoe manufacture, 207.
Siddons, Mrs., and Mary Wollstone-

craft, 96, 97.
Sigoumey, Mrs. Lydia H., 130.
Silk manufacture, 166, 453.
Sirault, Madame, of Paq. France,

quoted, 211.
Slop-shops, 139, 141. 146. 147.
Smith. Sydney, quoted. 9. 157.
Social Science. Association for the

Advancement of, 336, 337; for the

Promotion of, 379.
Society for the Employment of

Women, 455.
Soldiers, female, 163-165.
Sophocles, quoted, 265.
Sorbonne, the, 79; course of study

for women in, 211.
South Carolina, divorce in, 346.
Southold, N. Y., female physicians

in. 226 n.
Spencer. Miss, accoucheuse, 182.
Sta^l-Holstein, Madame Anne L. G.

N.. Baroness de, 277;'quoted, 59. 70.
Staffordshire, women of, paint crock-
ery. 182. 183.
Stanton, Mrs. E. C. 355, 480. 481,

498.
Starch, 157 n. *
Stephenson, Robert, 169.
Stone, Lucy, 480; quoted, 474-478.
Stowe. Mrs. Harriet E. B.. quoted,

343.344.
Straasburg. deaconesses' school at,

427.
Straw, braiding of, 157 n.
Suffrage, female, 110, 281, 282. 292.

293, 295, 319-326, 329, 356-364.

372, 473-489, 493, 498; petition to

The English Parliament tor, 483.
Sumner, Charles, and femsile suf-
frage, 482.
Sundew, 260.
Sweden, female preachers in, 434,

435; female suffrage in. 110. 329.

486; woman's property in, 110.

Tailors. 186.

Tait, William, quoted, 143.

Talleyrand-Pferigord, Charles Mau-
rice de. Prince de Benevant. 277.

Tambroni, Clotilda, professor of
Greek, 129.

Tappan. Arthur. 384.

Taste, the value of, 201 .

Taxation and representation, 359,
362-364.

Taylor, Miss Helen, writes for the
•^Westminster," 485.

Taylor, Mrs. Janet, 42, 370.
Teachers, female, their wages and

social position, 10-18; prefer

mathematics to classics, 18.
Teeth, artificial. 195.
Telegraphic reporters, female, 191.
Tennyson, Alfred, his "Idylls," 71;

quoted, 132.
Textile manufactures of the United

States, statistics of the men and

women employed on. 202.
Theodora, wife of Justinian. 273.
Thompson, George, quoted. 482.
TUton, Theodore, 45, 418, 488.
Timmins, Rev. Mrs., 436.
Toronto. 298.

Tothill. William, quoted, 338 n.. 339 n.
Tristan, Flora, 277.
Turks ashamed of their wives, 269.

United States, employments of
women in the, 196-207; marriage-
laws. 342-374.

Upeala, female suffrage in, 110. 329.

Vassar College, 44. 405-414. 493^

494.
Vaudois peasant women. 342.
Veratti. Laura, 129.
Vermont marriage law, 346, 348,

351, 352.
Vigny, Alfred de, criticism upon hi»

"Cinq-Mara." by Lady Morgan,

"Virginia Ga«ette." edited and

printed by a woman. 199.
Vishnu Sarma. quoted. 267. 268.
Volkers. Professor. 497.

Wages. 136-149, 196. 207. 286, 313,.
451-455, 468. 471, 472.

Wallis, Captain Samuel, at Otaheite,
74.

Waltham watch-factory. 204.

Ware, Mary, 201.

Watchmakers, opposition to women
as, in England and Switxerland,.
180. 181; watch-factory at Wal-
tham, Mass., 204.

West Indies, female laborers in the,
159.

"Westminster Review," 485, quoted,.
42, 317.

Weston, Professor J. B.. 399.

White, Jessie Meriton, unable to ob-
tain medical instruction, 24-26.

White. Joseph. 16.

Whitehead. William A., quoted,.
476.

Whitman. Mrs.. 238.

Wightfred's Council, abbesses in, 334.

Williams, Helen Maria. 93.

Williams. Marianne, wood-engraver,.
193

Wilson. George, quoted. 133.

INDEX.

511

Wisconsin, suffrage in, 481.

Wittembach, Frau, 128.

Wives, advice to. 368: Oriental, 268,
269; sale of, in England. 166, 167;
tributes to certain, by their hus-
bands, 28, 29, 327-329.— See also
Meuriage.

WoUstonecraft, Mary. — See Godwin,
Mr».

Woman-sufTrage Association, 485.

Wood-carving, 227-229.

Wood-engra\-ing, 193, 203, 227.

Woodlock, Mrs. Ellen, her industrial
schools, 246-251.

Wool, manufacture of, 165.

Work, need of, 207-210.

"Woman's Rights." the phrase, 360.

Woman's-rights party, misrepresen-
tations of the American, 106, 123.

Women in business for themselves,
138, 187, 197-201; women's claim*
to labor, 135 sqq.\ their physical
strength, 159-174; their quickness
in learning, 44; respect for women
as laborers. 196, 208.

Wright, Fanny, quoted, 73, 74.

York, Frederick, Duke of, his trial,.
325.

Zakrzewska, Marie, M.D., 429,

430.
Zinzendorf, N. L., Count von, oa

his wife, 126.

THE END.